


The Demon between My Thighs

by hellsinki



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Angelic Kagami Taiga, Angst, Aomine swears a lot, College students Kagami and Aomine, Dark fic, Demons, Did I mention angst, Hurt/Comfort, I've decided it's a happy ending, It Follows AU but not really a horror, Kagami-centric, Kuroko owns a shady bar, M/M, Midorima is a back alley doc, More tags to follow, PTSD, Past Suicide Attempts, Pining Aomine, Possible happy ending...maybe, Rape/Non-con Elements, Shady kagami, Sleep Deprivation, Suicidal Thoughts, check trigger warnings for each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2019-08-20 15:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16558175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsinki/pseuds/hellsinki
Summary: After years of being Japan’s unbeatable basketball player, Aomine has finally found himself a worthy rival who is not only strong enough to give him his first ever taste of defeat, but is also drop dead gorgeous and a potential boyfriend. The only problem? Anyone who sleeps with the redhead ends up dead. Or so Kuroko claims. ('It Follows' AU, sort of)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This AU loosely borrows the main concept from the horror film ‘It Follows’. You don’t need to have watched it to read this fic. In fact, it’s better if you haven’t so the story will unfold for you on its own pace. The fic deals with dark themes such as rape, violence and suicidal tendencies, and it will be angsty as hell. I will give the trigger warnings for each chapter. In this AU, Kagami returned to Japan for his first year in college, so the whole Seirin vs. GoM didn't happen. Kuroko has somehow ended up owning a shady pub and Midorima, a few years older than the rest, is a back alley doctor.

**Warnings:** mentions of throwing up

 

Beads of sweat run down his face, coating his lips with a glistening, salty layer, moistening his eyelashes, making them stick together over feverish sanguine eyes. He’s out of breath, his time in the Zone has long expired, and his muscles ache something fierce. His body is screaming at him to let go, he has pushed himself far enough, but his mind is still fighting for the last basket that will turn the game in their favor. Just two more points and the game will be theirs. But there is only five seconds left before the buzzer announces the end of the final showdown for the All Japan Intercollegiate Basketball Championship, and there is no way he can do it on his own. Not against this beast of an opponent. Aomine Daiki.

Getting his team, Keio, to the finals of the nationals was nothing to sneeze at. They went against teams twice as strong as theirs, and they barely made it out in one piece. But this game against Nittaidai, a university that solely caters to sports and has won the championships for six consecutive years, has been truly something special. And their power forward...damn. Kagami has never sweated this much in his whole life, has never grown so exhausted as to get kicked out of the Zone, has never had so much _fun_.

But this basket is important. It will decide the fate of the whole tournament. And Kagami has never wanted to win so badly he could feel the need buzz under his skin like hoards of bees. He is almost delirious with the desire to defeat Aomine Daiki. That arrogant bastard that has been taunting him throughout the whole game. _Entertain me, Kagami._ Tch. As if Kagami was there for that bastard’s enjoyment. He _has_ to get these two points, there is no other way around it. He cannot concede defeat to that condescending smirk. Not when his captain, Kiyoshi, was counting so much on winning the title this year. This was the last time he was playing basketball since he was in the last year of college, and he had no plans of going pro due to some serious leg injury. Kagami could not let him down.

But what can he do in just five seconds? Aomine would block him, there is no doubt about that, and then they would go into overtime, and honestly, Kagami could not move a muscle past this one jump, if he could make it. It is either this basket or giving up in overtime, and Kagami doesn't want the game to end with him being unable to keep up with that blue-haired bastard.

But what can he do?

And then, a soft whisper, in an all too familiar voice, blew through his mind like a breeze, chilling him to the core.

_Fake left. Take a step back. Pass to your right. Run five steps forward. Jump with 50% of your strength. Catch the ball and go for a slam dunk from the free throw line._

It would work. He knows it as surely as he knows his name. But should he listen to that voice? He has been ignoring that seductive whisper this whole time, even at times going against what it told him to do, missing valuable points because of it. But then Kiyoshi’s weary face swims before his eyes, that tired smile and the soft look, the ache in his joints visible in the tremor in his voice.

_“This game is the last for me, Kagami. No matter what happens, I want you to know that it’s been a great honor playing alongside you. I don’t think the team would've made it this far without your strength and light. I know I wouldn’t have.”_

The thought of seeing Kiyoshi’s smile, after the pain and sleepless nights and intense therapy, as their team raise the championship cups above their heads, is like a siren’s call, and before he could let his anxiety and the flashing red lights of foreboding change his mind, Kagami fakes left, takes a step back and without looking to his right to make sure there is a teammate to receive his pass, he throws the ball and takes off toward the basket like a bullet shot through the barrel of a gun. The pass takes Aomine by surprise, and his delayed reaction means the ball had managed to get into the hands of Kagami’s teammate, whoever they may be. Kagami counts his steps and jumps, arms already up in the air to receive the ball that the voice promised him would be there right at that moment. And it is. His fingers touch the hard studded rubber and curl around it, going for that flamboyant airwalk of his from the free throw line, and slamming the ball with all his remaining strength into the basket. He dangles from the hoop for a few seconds, the court spinning below his feet as he beat the buzzer.

80-78.

Keio University wins the nationals for the first time in two decades.

Kagami drops down heavily on the floor, dazed from the deafening uproar in the stands, tracks of cold sweat drying on his clammy skin.

“Kagami.”

He turns toward the voice on instinct, eyes landing on dumbstruck blues. He should be gloating, telling the blue-haired ace that in the end, he couldn’t really afford the kind of _entertainment_ Kagami put on. But his voice is stuck somewhere deep in his throat and he’s afraid if he opens his mouth, he’ll throw up.

“You beat me.”

He sounds just as bewildered as he looks. Like this is a joke. An absurd nightmare. Some alternate universe that he has dropped into, where some returnee that no one knew anything about could hand his unbeatable ass to him with his first taste of defeat.

“I...I didn’t.”

Bile rises up in his throat and he shuts his mouth to trap the vomit behind clenched teeth. His head swims and the world blurs around the edges of his sight, and he feels so cold under his skin that a strong shiver runs down his spine, causing his arms to wrap around his midsection on their own volition.

Someone appears in his line of vision that has no business of being there, and Kagami feels dread twist inside his gut like a knife tearing into his flesh. He feels lightheaded and drained and about to die, swaying slightly on his feet.

Before he faceplants into the wooden surface of the court, or lets himself get drowned in the sea of his teammates’ bumping fists and shouts of joy, Kagami turns on his heels and runs back into the corridor, going straight for the restroom.

He doesn’t even show up for the final lineup; too busy puking his guts out into the toilet.

His team won the game, they won the nationals, but Kagami doesn’t feel like a winner.

He hurts all over, his stomach is in knots and his head a painful mess. The dry heaving feels like sandpaper scraping repeatedly against the soft, tender tissues of his throat, his knees are in agony pressed against the cold tiles under his dead weight. He feels faint and unsteady. Traumatized and...violated.

The thought makes him retch once more into the toilet, feeling so dirty, so defiled, that he will be scrubbing his skin raw once he gets home.

As he raises his head from the toilet to let it rest against the chilly wall of the bathroom stall, trying to get his breathing back to normal and push back the urge to retch once more, he feels the pressure of a delicate hand against his quivering shoulder, and he tastes blood as his teeth sink viciously into his lip to stifle a startled yelp.

“Taiga.”

_Fuck._

 

***

 

_Where the fuck is he?_ Aomine thinks with an anxious expression on his face as he eyes the Keio’s lineup and fails to spot the tall redhead there. They do the mandatory bow and the Keio’s team is swept away to pose before the cameras with victory cups raised above their heads.

For some reason, the knowledge that Nittaidai failed to win the nationals in the exact same year that Aomine joined the basketball team does not faze him as much as he thinks it should. His mind at the moment is preoccupied with another thought; That redhead...Kagami Taiga...is not among the Keio players who are celebrating their hard-earned victory with the biggest grins on their tired faces.  

He has half a mind to walk up to the winning team and ask them where on earth their ace is, but he doesn’t want to draw attention to his new-found obsession, not when it’s just so fresh and confusing and overwhelming to him.

The Keio’s ace had been giving him serious hell throughout the whole game, matching him in speed, strength and strategy. He even forced Aomine into the Zone - the first time he entered it after so many years, and what was even more shocking was that the redhead also got into the Zone himself, focusing all of his attention and strength on Aomine alone.

The blue-haired basketball player has been playing in powerhouses all through his school years, but not even once has he heard anything about Kagami Taiga. Of course, the fact that he never really showed up to watch the rival teams’ games and didn’t listen to Momoi’s detailed profiles on their upcoming opponents before each game, made his first encounter with the redhead all the more astounding.

Where has he been hiding all these years? And what did really happen in those five seconds before the game ended?

He didn’t even look to his right when he made that pass! He was staring straight at him, weird split eyebrows furrowed over intense, carmine eyes. He wasn’t even in the Zone anymore, his moves shouldn’t have been as sharp and unpredictable as they were. That’s why Aomine had let his guard down, knowing that in Kagami’s current state of exhaustion, there was no way he would miss the slightest move, not even the twitch of an eye or a sharp intake of breath.

And yet, the redhead had surprised him by throwing the ball to his right without even looking to see if his ball would be caught by a teammate. That was a high risk, why would he take it? That random pass could’ve ended the game for them right then and there, if someone from Nittaidai had caught it. But there was a fire in his eyes, and such assured confidence in his steps, as he ran past Aomine toward the basket, as if he knew, with every fiber of his being, that the ball would be in his hand, one last time, for that last basket. He jumped with his arms raised over his head and caught the ball so easily as if he was facing it. What the hell. Does he have eyes at the back of his head, or what?

But he can’t confirm any of this without Kagami here to ask him about it. He remembers the pallid face and blown out pupils, sweat sticking his longish bangs against his forehead, arms wrapped around his midsection as if he was warding off cold. In short, the redhead looked like he had seen a ghost, not the face of someone who had scored the last points that won his team the championship title. And that slight shake of his head as he denied that he had beat Aomine, even though he definitely had. What was his deal?

The more he thinks about the enigmatic redhead, the more confused, the more obsessed he becomes. But one thing is for sure, though. Aomine would not rest easy until he found Kagami Taiga and demanded an explanation. And a one-on-one. And a date. The possibilities were endless.

Despite the exhaustion and the loss of championship title, Aomine finds himself grinning in absolute delight.

Suddenly, there is something to look forward to, a worthy rival, an exciting encounter, a potential sex partner.

_Kagami,_ he whispers the name under his breath almost reverently, thinking about that last super jump and the glorious airwalk, but also those gorgeous blood red eyes and the self-assured, challenging smile. _Kagami Taiga._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nippon Sport Science (Nittaidai) and Keio are real universities in Tokyo, but the number of their championships in the nationals is made-up. Also, Kiyoshi is the captain in here bc I wanted to keep the parallels. 
> 
> I know i'm a hundred years late to the party, but i love Kagami so much, and aokaga is my OTP, and the idea for this story wouldn't let me sleep, so here it is. Chapters may take ages to be posted though, sorry. Sadly, I don't have much free time to write fanfics. Although if there are people who actually want to read the rest of the fic, I may try to free up more time to write it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning:** Mentions of possible physical abuse

 

The first time he sees Kagami again, after that life-changing game at the nationals two weeks ago that handed his team a painful, unbelievable defeat at the expense of his own utter delight at having finally found a worthy rival, is, oddly enough, at Ignite - the shady izakaya owned by his old friend from Teikou middle school, Kuroko Tetsuya.

Ignite isn’t a nice place by any stretch of the imagination, and yet it is always buzzing with activity, no matter the time of the day. It is mostly frequented by people of questionable morals (to put it mildly), because for some miraculous reason, the place always manages to slip under the police radar. It’s as if the outside world does not even know the pub exists, unless you are specifically looking for it. Aomine frequents the pub to catch up with his old friend over his deliciously-made Umetinis, and sometimes for one-night stands with older women who give him false names and are gone the next morning way before Aomine wakes up.

So, seeing that messy mop of two-toned crimson hair at a place like this takes him quite off-guard. He starts to walk up to Kagami and demand his attention when he stops short in his track, eyes widening at the scene unfolding before him: the redhead is leaning toward a bulky man with fuzzy brown hair and dangerous beady eyes, a flirtatious smile on his plump lips as he whispers something into the stranger’s ear. The man’s hand goes up to grip the redhead’s upper arm in what Aomine can clearly see is quite painful, meaty fingers with sharp nails digging into the younger man’s bare flesh, and although Kagami’s eyebrows - those strange, split eyebrows- furrow slightly in discomfort, the redhead doesn’t protest. If anything, he seems to be encouraging the rough handling, leaning more into the aggressive man’s space, lips forming around words in a way that Aomine is sure are utterly lewd and inappropriate. What he says seems to have angered the man, or woken up the beast inside him, as he suddenly gets to his feet with a growl and drags Kagami up by the arm which is still in his vice-like clutch. The redhead stumbles to his feet as he tries to regain his balance, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to pull his arm free. He simply allows the brute to drag him out of the pub, like a 6ft something rag doll, into the cold, snowy night outside.

A sight standing in such a stark contrast to what Aomine had seen of the redhead during that game in the finals that it leaves him shaken in a way that he can’t wrap his mind around; something seems to have snapped in his brain and he feels a lump in his throat close to nausea. The way that his heart rate has picked up pace tells him he is experiencing dread, but he doesn’t understand why. He leaves the pub a minute or two after Kagami had made his bizarre exit, without even acknowledging Kuroko.

The next time he sees Kagami is almost a month after, in early January, and once again inside Ignite on another snowy Saturday night. This time, the redhead is by himself at the counter, nursing a drink absentmindedly, while his carmine eyes scan the crowd in a restless fashion. Aomine knows that look. The redhead is looking for a hook-up and the thought, the memory of that worthless thug manhandling him and getting his greedy, dirty hands all over Kagami, attacks Aomine’s mind like vicious claws to the face and makes his guts twist in fury and a barely controlled sickness.

He looks fine though, dressed in a short sleeve army green t-shirt stretched tight over his muscled chest and broad shoulders, long, shapely legs covered by white slim pants tucked into black leather boots. There is no sign of abuse on him; no scratch or bruise marks on his tanned skin. But it has been one month already, and if there had been bruises in the first place (and Aomine isn’t naive enough to think that there hadn’t, not with the way that prick had been growling like a ravenous beast and dragging Kagami’s body around as if he was a piece of meat) they have all healed up, leaving no evidence behind.

Under the harsh glow of the yellow lighting above his head, Kagami’s crimson hair looks on fire. His presence is overwhelming, like a magnetic field drawing many wandering gazes into his orbit, including Aomine’s, and the way he’s dressed couldn’t have been unintentional, could it? What is he doing all alone in a place like this?

Aomine then sees him talking with Kuroko, a warm smile lighting up the whole span of his face, and he thinks maybe Kagami is here because he knows Kuroko, too. The thought makes the nauseating feeling in his guts settle down a bit.

Once he gets to Kagami and takes the stool next to his, Kuroko has already left to tend to another customer.

“Hey. Kagami.” He says in a casual tone, although his heart is beating hard against his ribcage. Being this close to the redhead is doing funny things to his breathing pattern. It doesn’t help that the slightly shorter man also smells divine.

Kagami’s head snaps toward him, carmine eyes widening in surprise. “Aomine?!”

It pleases Aomine greatly that the redhead remembers his name.

“Buy you a drink?”

There is pause that stretches between them long enough to make Aomine start feeling apprehensive. The redhead’s eyes are resting heavily on him, as if boring into his soul, analyzing him. It is not too far-fetched to think that Kagami is sizing him up, wondering if Aomine has ulterior motives, if he is trying to be his hook-up champion for the night. 

Aomine waits out the silence patiently, letting Kagami come to his own conclusions.

“Sure. Thanks.” He says at last in a flat tone, then looking away, leaving Aomine confused about his signal. Did he think that Aomine was trying to pick him up and he just said yes? Or did he just see Aomine as a familiar face, an acquaintance, that sharing drinks with could make them friends?

 Getting to the bottom of things has never been Aomine’s forte.

“So, you come here often?”

“Not really, no. The last time was, uhh, three weeks ago, I guess?”

_Four,_ he barely managed to contain himself from blurting out. He doesn’t want Kagami to know that he had seen him that time he went home with a total douchebag.

On the other hand, his answer makes that unsettling feeling return to his stomach.

“But I thought you knew Tetsu.”

“Tetsu?”

He doesn’t know Kagami. Just because he beat him at basketball, a feat that no one has ever managed in all of Aomine’s 20 years of life, does not mean anything. And even if the guy was involved in some shady business, what was it to him? He’s far from qualified to judge other people’s lifestyles.

Still, knowing all that does not stop Aomine from feeling utterly let-down.

His countenance becomes more and more gloomy by the second. “The owner. Kuroko.”

At the mention of the azure-haired man, Kagami’s lips stretch into a wide smile, the warmth of which like a physical caress brushing against Aomine’s face.

“Ah Kuroko, yeah,” he rubs the back of his head as he turns toward Kuroko’s direction, who is busy serving a particularly fussy customer. “Well, I do know him. We met on a basketball court once and we kinda hit it off.”

Aomine smirks. “Let me guess. He called you the light and himself the shadow.”

Those impressive eyebrows rise high on his forehead, disappearing behind his black-toned bangs. Aomine was ready to commit the rest of his life to watching every little expression flicker across the redhead’s face.

“Dude, that’s exactly...but how did you …?”

Aomine finds it cute how the man’s utter bewilderment doesn’t allow him to finish his sentences.

He shrugs like it’s no big deal, “It’s like his pickup line.” although the only other person Kuroko has ever said that line to was him, all those years back in middle school.

Kagami’s eyebrows crease in disbelief. “Seriously? But he never said anything about being interested in me.”

“That’s weird,” because the Kuroko that Aomine knows, and he knows him very well, is always upfront about what he wants, and if he has already marked Kagami as his light, then he’s definitely interested in him. “He probably thought he’s not your type.”

“Well, yeah he’s really not.” Kagami rubs his neck again in a gesture that Aomine has come to read as bashfulness, and he almost asks what his type is, but there are still more things he needs to learn about the redhead before his preference in men, so he pushes that thought to the back of his mind.

“Where have you been all these years? Didn’t you play basketball at school?”

“Oh, I did. Just not in Japan.”

“You’re a foreigner?” In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have sounded so surprised. Kagami, despite his Japanese name, looks actually so exotic with that crimson hair and blood red eyes that Aomine can't really place his nationality.

“More like a returnee I guess, if you could actually say that. I left Japan when I was 9 and have lived in the States ever since.”

“You’re American? Dude. Why the fuck would you even come back? You could’ve been playing in NBA right now.”

Kagami averts his eyes, as if uncomfortable with the topic of discussion. “Well, uhh...I had some business here that needed to be taken care of.”

The answer is vague enough and the tone so hesitant that Aomine knows further probing will not yield any more information on the topic, so he lets it go. For now. “You’ll be here next year though, right? ‘Cause I’m gonna take back the title and mop the court with your face in the process.”

This seems to have put Kagami back on sure ground, as the redhead turns to face him once again, carmine eyes shining with fiery challenge. “In your dreams, aho! Like hell I let you win! I’m gonna be even stronger next year, so you still won’t stand a chance.” His spirited tone falls flat at the end and the shine in his eyes grows dim. “Oh, uhh…” He looks as if he has just remembered something disheartening, and Aomine feels panic released in his bloodstreams.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. I … I’m not sure if I’ll be here next year.” He sounds apologetic, and Aomine feels ridiculously sappy about it.

“What gives? Going back to America?”

“Uhh...I mean, yeah. I guess.”

Seriously though, Kagami is a shitty liar. “Are you chickening out _Bakagami_?”

“Shut up, _Ahomine_! That’s not…”, he looks like he wants to tell Aomine what this is all about, but then he changes his mind and sighs in exasperation. “Damn, you’re infuriating.”

Kuroko chooses that moment to finally get rid of that fussy customer and make his way to them. Aomine looks at Kagami’s drink to ask for a refill. It’s some white liquor with an olive in a cocktail glass, could be sake, but Aomine doesn’t want to presume in case he’s wrong.

“I’m surprised you’re not drinking Red Eye.”

“Dude, the eye color joke is so lame.” He shakes his head with a little smile on his face. “Nah, not a fan of tomato juice, to be honest.”

“But you have to admit having red eyes is pretty weird.”

“Weirder than having blue hair? Unless of course you’ve dyed yours.”

“Nah, I’m a natural blunette.” Aomine gives him a suggestive smirk. “Want me to prove it to you?”

Kagami ignores the crude flirting with a role of his eyes and another shake of his head, downing the last drops of whatever his drink is.

In front of them, Kuroko taps his fingers on the counter impatiently.

“So, what’re you having?”

“Dry martini.”

“That’s not Japanese.”

“No, it’s American. Kuroko is really amazing at mixing any kinds of drinks, isn't he.” He gives Kuroko a wide grin, white straight teeth catching the golden light pouring on them from a dozen of pendant lights hanging above their heads, and the shorter man’s expression softens in a way that Aomine hasn’t witnessed on that usually blank face in ages.

The sincerity of that smile makes something warm coil around Aomine’s heart.

“Can’t argue with that. Hey, Testu. Give Kagami a refill of his dry martini and bring me one of your vicious Umetinis.”

Kuroko gives him a hard stare. “Aomine-kun, please stop.”

He has been the recipient of that cold, chastising glare too many times to be in need of asking what he means by that. Aomine doesn’t understand why Kuroko would object to his interest in Kagami, though. The redhead is nothing like his previous one-night stands. Plus, Kuroko seems to like him, too. Or is that it? Is he actually jealous? Tch. Aomine will not let the other man take away his chance of scoring a date with the redhead. “Tetsu. Get lost. And get the drinks.”

Kuroko stays to stare a little more at Aomine, with those admonishing big blue eyes of his, and leaves with a frowning mouth and tense shoulders.

When he comes back with their drinks, his expression is still dark and unforgiving. It must have been a novel sight to the redhead who has ever seen Kuroko with his signature blank countenance.

True to form, Kagami looks confused. “What was that?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” Now, having found out all he needed about Kagami, and with his drink finally here, it was time to get to the point. “So… you said Kuroko is not your type. What’s your type, then?”

The question seems to have caught the redhead off-guard. “Why...why are you asking me that?”

He sounds apprehensive, but Aomine pays it no mind as he takes a sip at his Umetini, savoring the rich taste on his tongue. “‘Cause I’m interested.”

“What? No! You can’t be!” Kagami exclaims in such a loud tone that Aomine almost chokes on his drink, and almost all heads in the pub turn in their direction. The redhead pulls his body back, and snatches back a hand that had been resting close to Aomine’s on the counter, as if Aomine has suddenly contracted a contagious disease and he wants to get as far away from him as possible.

The reaction really pisses Aomine off. “What the hell, man? Why not?!”

“Because...because you just can’t! I’m not...I’m not interested.” He stutters and the way he throws his arms around makes for a comic scene, and Aomine would’ve laughed at his overdramatic antics if his ego wasn’t so bruised.

“What’s wrong with me?” He leans further into Kagami’s space, and the redhead backs away. The expression on his face looks close to panic, which gets on Aomine’s nerves. It’s not like Aomine is going to jump him or anything.

“Nothing. I mean everything! You’re not the type I go after.”

“Then pray tell who is?!”

Because honestly, Aomine knows he’s very attractive. There is not one single case where he’s been rejected. And it’s not just his physical appeal. He has a certain aura, a confidence bordering on arrogance, that draws attention and holds it there for as long as he demands it. He doesn’t understand Kagami’s appalled reaction to being asked out by him. If anything, he should be flattered, damnit!

Kagami sighs and looks around. His eyes land on two men at the far back of the pub, who seem to be engaged in some sort of a fist fight. Upon further inspection, it seems that one of them is delivering the blows while the other is trying to protect his face by curling into himself.

Kagami points in their direction. “That one.”

“What?! The one who’s having the crap beat outta him?”

Kagami shakes his head. “No. The other one.”

“That asshole? You’re into assholes?!”

“Yeah.”

That single-word confirmation, delivered in such a flat and sincere tone, catches Aomine completely off-guard, and his growing anger and frustration sizzle out like a burning cigarette butt stumped out under a boot.

 “You have a problem or something?” He asks in a softer tone, which comes out more curious than accusatory.

Kagami bites his lower lip nervously. “Yeah. Listen Aomine. You’re a good basketball player. You’re the best. But I’m not interested in you sexually, okay? Don’t take it the wrong way.”

When he saw Kagami today, deciding to sit by him, get to know him, and ask him out because damn, is he his soulmate or what?, he never thought it would end this way. With his honest declaration of interest thrown into his face, like he’s a random pervert on the street, hitting on a passer-by hottie.

The rejection hurts like a punch to the gut, the humiliation burns hot under his skin, and he needs to get away from those blood red eyes that are regarding him with such cool indifference.

“Whatever.” He throws the money for his and Kagami’s drinks on the counter, and leaves the pub with hands clenched into fists inside his pockets.

Outside the pub, soft powdery snow has collected in a thin layer on the sidewalk, and the joyful laughter of children and the excited intonations of young couples walking past Aomine feel like the Fate’s childish ridicule of his hurt feelings.

Inside the pub, Kagami downs his dry martini in one go, takes a deep breath, arranges his expression into a seductive one, and turns around to catch the attention of that bulky asshole who had been beating up that unlucky sod minutes ago.

He’s not there.

_Damnit._  

He bangs his fist on the counter, knocking over his empty glass and causing the remaining liquid in Aomine’s glass to spill over. In his peripheral vision, he sees Kuroko turning his head in his direction, no doubt with a concerned expression on his face. He sighs and fights the urge to drop his head on the counter even though the polished wooden surface looks so inviting. There is no guarantee that he would be able to raise his head one more time if he laid it atop the counter and closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I google searched about popular Japanese drinks, and have no personal experience with them (with any drinks, tbh), so please forgive me if the info is not accurate.  
> Thanks for reading! The next chapter may take longer, sorry in advance.


	3. Chapter 3

**Warning** : descriptions of sleep deprivation symptoms; mentions of murder reports 

  

Sleep deprivation weighs down on his skull like a physical force, pressing his eyeballs deep into their sockets. He avoids mirrors like the plague. Just knowing how haggard he looks, thinking about how exhausted he feels, being unable to do anything about it except to make a half-assed attempt at covering up the dark, bruise-like bags under his eyes with a thick layer of concealer, it makes it all the more difficult to deal with his problem.

He hasn’t been able to sleep for five days in a row, and he is going insane.

After the fourth day going without sleep, he stops attending his classes, stays out late hanging around with his teammates, and once home, he locks himself out of his bedroom, upends the comfortable couch in the living room, and avoids sitting down for longer than 30 minutes. His smartwatch is always strapped on his wrist, reminding him to get up with an ear-piercing fire alarm ringtone that gives him a near heart attack every time it goes off. The jolt keeps him alert for a while, his rapid heart rate clearing the black spots in his vision and his harsh, deep breathing pulling enough oxygen into his lungs to slow down the spinning of his head. The hallucinations linger, though, the shifting shadows in his peripheral, closing in on him when he gathers enough courage to stare right at them, urging his mind to get its shit together. And those insane eyes that watch his every move, waiting for him to make a mistake, to make a wrong turn, to trip and fall flat on his face. Sadly, not a sleep deprivation-induced hallucination, those eyes. He knows. He’s checked.

He’s a real mess; has been for over six months now. He has no idea how he has made it this far, but he has a gut feeling that his luck is about to run out. He’s going to crash, drop down in the middle of the court, or while climbing the stairs, shampooing his hair in the shower, or dragging his feet on the sidewalk, cracking his skull on the concrete in the best case scenario. In short, he’s going to die.

He needs to go to Ignite tonight, after the game and the obligatory attendance at Izuki’s birthday party. He needs to get laid, get seriously fucked-up. Even more so than he is right now. He wonders how much more he can take before his body totally gives up. A terrifying thought, better saved for a time when he’s not going out of his mind.  

“Taiga.”

Kagami hurls the now empty mug of his morning coffee in the direction the voice came from and relishes in the sound of ceramics smashing into pieces against the wall.  

 

*******

  


It’s just a friendly match against a local university and while the team is strong, it has nothing on Keio, and Kagami had the permission to sit out the entire game, preserving his energy while making observations, but he didn’t want to be left alone with his thoughts, and the urge to curl up on a bench in the locker room, or feel the heavy, constant stare of those creepy eyes on him, penetrating through his skin and bones like a sharp-edged katana.

After missing four passes, three baskets, and making two fouls in just one quarter, he realizes that he has made a grave mistake. He should have just stayed on the bench for this game, to avoid drawing further suspicion to his problem. Their coach, Aida Riko, seems to have caught on to the fact that something is seriously wrong with him as she pulls him to a secluded area after the break at half-time and directs her most severe scowl at him.

“When was the last time you slept?” Her voice is hard, brown eyes calculating, arms folded across her chest, making Kagami feel like a trapped mouse under the scrutiny of a predator that wants to tear off his head.

Kagami scratches the back of his head, diverting his eyes. “Uhh...last night?”

Aida pulls her brows together in disapproval. “The fact that you decided to lie about this tells me your situation is even worse than I thought.”

“Seriously coach, it’s alright. I’m alright.” The lie tastes like ash on his tongue, making him realize just how parched his throat is.

Of course, Aida is not fooled. “Nothing about those dark bags under your eyes is alright, Kagami. You told me you have trouble sleeping on the night before an official game, but we haven’t had one of those for a month and this was just a warmup. Kagami, what’s wrong? As your coach I have to know these things.”

“I told you it’s nothing. I won't let it affect my performance. I promise.” _Anymore than I already have, anyway,_ Kagami thinks with a sinking feeling like guilt and disappointment in the pit of his stomach.

Aida sighs, deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. “Kagami. If you collapse out of exhaustion during our game next week, I will keep your ass out of the team for the entire upcoming season.”

It’s a serious threat; one that Kagami knows she would keep, even though without Kagami on the team, the chances of Keio winning the upcoming tournament drops to 40%, because with Aida, winning is not everything, the well-being of her team is far more important. And Kagami has no intention of missing one single game, let alone an entire tournament, and be the reason for his team’s losses. Just when he thought he was at his lowest, with nothing more to lose, the coach comes out and threatens him with kicking him off the team. Living the dream in the gutter, or some other poetic shit.

Kagami swallows hard, his almost non-existent saliva scraping down his throat like sawdust. He steadfastly ignores the cold, tickling brush of long, thin fingers along his arm, causing goosebumps to break all over his exposed skin. Panic is slowly rising, like a cat uncurling its back and scratching his mind with an almost personal grudge, but now is not the time.

“I won’t.” There is determination in his voice, and desperation in his eyes, and the sweat has washed off the concealer off his skin and the dark bags stand out like some ill omen on his pale skin.

He feels the ghost of fingers curling around his, in a spiteful mockery of hand-holding, and if he didn’t need his hands to be intact for basketball, he would just punch through glass, if only for the pain and the shock to distract him from the vile, unwelcome touch of those spidery fingers against his clammy palm.

There must be something on his face, the panic sneakily rising up in his eye sockets, the vicious lip biting that has damaged the soft skin there, the maddening thumps of his heart that he swears half of the people in the crowd can hear, that makes Aida relent without further questions or threats. Kagami returns to the game and plays the last two quarters with a clearer head, pushing himself forward, once again, on sheer willpower. He has something to prove, to the team, to the coach, to himself, and to those damn eyes watching him silently, patiently, from the sidelines. He won’t collapse out of exhaustion, no matter how strong the tug of fatigue is on his mental faculties, be it during a game, or anywhere else. It’s not like he can actually afford to.

 

 *******  


He said he didn’t come to Ignite too often, and yet here he is again, for the second consecutive night; in a different outfit this time, but still serving the same purpose. Tight in all the right places, showing enough tanned skin to be tempting and yet not too gaudy, the posture and the curve of his body leaning casually against the wall at the far end of the pub oozing confidence in unmistakably seductive undertones; his forceful presence carried like sensuous whispers around the entire place, brushing softly against every pair of ears, ‘ _hey, look at me. I know you want to, and you’re allowed to, because I’m being generous tonight, and who could blame you, anyway? I know you can’t keep your eyes off me, so why bother?’_

And _everyone_ does look, some gazes linger in appreciation and blatant lust, and some fleet away in discomfort or a general lack of confidence. Aomine’s lingers for just a few seconds, almost despite himself, caught on the sultry cupid bow of those plump lips and the sharp edge of his cheekbones, before he shakes his head with a short sigh of frustration and chooses the furthest stool from the redhead, sitting down at the counter with his back to him.

He wasn’t able to sleep peacefully last night. There was just too much color red in his dreams, and the red wasn’t even of the fiery passion in those scarlet eyes, or the rivetting crimson of his soft, yet rumpled, hair. It was, disturbingly enough, the red of blood, with the acrid smell and sour tang of it tricking his senses long after he woke up. He isn’t prone to nightmares. He mostly sleeps like a log, dead to the world. The dream last night had rattled him so much he ended up calling Momoi at six in the morning to listen to her familiar voice talking about safe, trivial things until the creepy feeling of the dream had worn off.

Feeling the remnants of the nightmare creeping up on him again, Aomine flags down Kuroko - who keeps sneaking glances at Kagami, as if making sure that the redhead is still there or to see whom he’s going home with - and orders dry martini in a flat tone. The shorter man gives him a look, hard and imploring, but he complies with a shake of his head in disappointment.

Only when has he downed three glasses of gin and vermouth does he even acknowledge Kuroko and start talking.

“Tetsu. I can’t get him out of my head.”

He doesn’t need to clarify who he is talking about. Kuroko looks to his right, where Kagami is leaning against the wall, searching for a suitable hook-up. The thought grates on Aomine’s nerves like a ball that keeps refusing to go through the basket. Kagami’s into _assholes_ . Aomine’s been told by many people to be an asshole, but he doesn’t see himself at that level of moral depravity that is capable of beating up the weak and sexually assaulting the tempting. He’s not Kagami’s type. And the fury that twists around his gut and digs its claws into his tissues is not that of jealousy and disappointment. It’s of a more mature, justifiable kind. He’s worried about the redhead, about his questionable taste in bed partners, and the realization, although it feels right, it also makes him feel terrified. What can he do with this concern when Kagami doesn’t even like him? How can he get over this...this stupid _crush_?

Over his bent head he hears Kuroko sigh, deep and obviously exasperated, but he doesn’t look up from his drink, scowling at the liquor like it is withholding from him the answer to the mystery that is Kagami Taiga.

“You shouldn’t pursue him, Aomine-kun.”

“Why not?” He asks lazily, watching the liquor swirl around the glass as he twists it around. If Kuroko really had an agenda to keep Kagami for himself, he was doing a very shitty job of it so far.  

There’s a pause, long enough for Aomine to think of a potential response, imitating Kuroko’s soft voice and flat intonation in his head, ‘ _because I saw him first, Aomine-kun. Back off!’_

“Because he’s cursed.”

Aomine’s head snaps up at the bizarre answer, eyes looking at Kuroko comically, like the man has gone insane or Aomine has just been dropped into some crappy sitcom. He looks serious, though, sky blue eyes unblinking and a frown marring his trademark blank face, which makes the whole situation even more ridiculous.

Aomine bursts into laughter. “What the fuck, Tetsu?! _Cursed_? I wasn’t expecting that from you of all people, spewing such nonsense.”

Kuroko shakes his head. “It’s not nonsense, Aomine-kun. Kagami-kun _is_ cursed. And everyone he sleeps with ends up dead because of it.”

Aomine’s eyes widen in surprise. This bizarre tale is getting wilder by the second. “What?! He kills them?”

Kuroko looks almost put-out. “No, not him. That’s why I say he’s cursed. There’s something, some demonic power I suspect, that does the killing for whatever reason. You should be grateful Aomine-kun. The fact that Kagami-kun turned you down was a way for him to keep you safe.”

Aomine shakes his head. There’s only so much nonsense he can take before he loses his shit. “What the actual fuck. Stop fucking around, Tetsu. This level of bullshit only suits the likes of Kise, not you.”

Honestly, he could’ve just told him he was interested in Kagami and didn’t want any competition, especially not from the likes of Aomine who looked like they could easily win if they put their minds to it. It’s not going to make a difference, though. Aomine has no intention to back off.

“I figured you wouldn’t believe me. But I have proof.”

Aomine arches a brow as Kuroko leans down to grab something from under the counter. “Here, take a look at these.”

“What am I looking at?” Aomine asks as his eyes roam over a pile of newspaper clippings in front of him. The one on top, which he can see, is about a short report on a murder case, a grisly one by the look of it, an unrecognizable mess of torn flesh and poking bones next to a mugshot of a dangerous looking middle-aged man, it makes him nauseous just by looking at the gritty black and white photos. _October 14th_ is written in black marker on top of the paper, almost four months ago then. Victim, 45-year-old Takahiro Shibuya, who had been convicted for sex offences two years ago, now found torn to pieces in his room a week after his death. The investigation has led to absolutely no clue about the murderer, although the man had been involved in enough shady business to have made some dangerous enemies for wanting to do that to him.

Kuroko spreads the paper clippings on the counter. They are all murder reports, with the date written on top of them, ranging from October all the way into January. Aomine’s stomach churns.   

“These people that have been killed in the past four months....they are the ones Kagami-kun had slept with. And the murders all happened exactly the morning after Kagami-kun had left Ignite with them.”

Kuroko picks up a clipping from the pile and holds it in front of Aomine. “Look at this one. You recognize him, don’t you? You were here when Kagami-kun left the pub with him. Look at the date of the murder. Exactly the morning after. This is no coincidence, Aomine-kun, trust me.”

The man in the photo does look a lot like that beady-eyed asshole Kagami left Ignite with a month ago. Aomine doesn’t know about the rest, though. Although, he sees no reason for Kuroko to lie about all those people being Kagami’s hook-ups in the past, even though what he claims to be the cause of their gruesome murders is just too outlandish to believe.

“Huh. But I really like him, Tetsu.” Aomine shrugs, and downs the rest of his drink, trying to dislodge the ball of discomfort and anxiety in his throat.

“So much so that you wouldn't mind dying for it?”

“I don’t really buy this crap.”

To his credit, Kuroko doesn’t look offended at Aomine’s lack of trust in his wild tale. “It’s okay if you don’t believe it. Kagami-kun will never agree to sleep with you, so I have nothing to worry about.”

Something about that assumption doesn’t sit well with Aomine’s alcohol-addled mind. “Are you saying I’m not sexy enough for that redhead, Tetsu? You saying I’m out of his league?”

Next to Aomine’s accusatory high tone, Kuroko’s calm voice is jarring. “Weren’t you listening, Aomine-kun? I said Kagami-kun wouldn’t sleep with you because he doesn't want you to end up dead.”

“Ugh! Not this again! I like that redhead, and I won’t stop until I get him.” It’s mostly the frustration talking, he thinks, the loud, spirited proclamation that he would do anything to get the redhead. This crush, this sudden interest in a more or less stranger, is nothing serious, surely, he would try again of course, because the first time was too weird to take it seriously, but if Kagami rejects him again, he will let go. He has too much pride and self-worth to pine after the unattainable, no matter if he thought, and still thinks, that the redhead is his fucking _soulmate_.

“That’s why I didn't want you to meet him.”

“Hah?!” Aomine scowls. Was Kuroko trying to meddle in his life or something?

The light-blue haired man gives a resigned sigh. “I told Kagami-kun to never come here on the weekend so he wouldn’t bump into you. But after your game in the nationals, I knew it didn't matter anymore. You’d already met Kagami-kun and I was sure you’d developed an interest in him, so I told him he could come here any time he needs to, because apparently he doesn’t stick to a fixed schedule. But I’m serious Aomine-kun. You must stop pursuing him. This will only lead to trouble.”

Aomine puts his elbow on the counter, propping up his chin.

 

“I love trouble.”

“This one’s serious.”

“So am I, Tetsu.”

“Aomine-kun…”

 

Aomine drops his hand on the counter, straightens his back, looking directly at Kuroko with a hard-set expression on his face. “No, listen here, Tetsu. You’re my friend and I appreciate your concern, but it’s unnecessary. I can take care of myself. And you don’t understand how much this thing, how much _Kagami_ , means to me. He...he beat me, Tetsu. He’s stronger than me in basketball and I want to, _fuck_ , I want to spend more time around him. He’s my destined rival I have been waiting to meet for nearly 20 years! Remember you told me all those years ago that one day I’d meet someone amazing? Well that’s him! It’s Kagami. I can’t just let him go over some weird shit conspiracy theory.”

That was the longest he has ever talked, the most passion he has ever let slip into his tone. He thinks he should be unsettled by the severity of his feelings for Kagami, but he feels numb, almost at peace with the realization, maybe even resigned at the inevitability of it. Fate. That must be it. His encounter with Kagami was fate. It took too long to happen but better late than never, right? Aomine has a lot of catching up to do now.

“I’m sorry it had to be him. Both for him and for you.”

Kuroko looks utterly miserable as he says that, and Aomine opens his mouth to say something stupid to dissipate the gloom, but then the shorter man looks away at where Kagami should be, and his wretched expression morphs into deep concern.

“Oh no.”

Aomine turns around in his stool so fast he almost gives himself a whiplash.

“What’s he doing?!” Aomine almost shouts, eyes widening at the sheer absurdity of the scene before him.

“He’s leaving.”

Kuroko sounds too bland, too unaffected, the earlier concern washed off his face and replaced with an inscrutable expression, as he watches Kagami making his way toward the exit with a man twice his size and age, his aura so rotten and black, that it almost makes Aomine throw up in his mouth.

“With that...that fucking rapist?!” Why does it feel like he’s about to have a panic attack? He has never been so emotionally unstable. He thought he was incapable of angry outbursts. He thought he was too depressed to be able to muster enough fucks to give, and yet here he was, overwhelmed and blindsided by intense emotions.

“Aomine-kun, please don’t get involved.”

Kuroko’s hand is on top of his and only then does Aomine realize his white knuckles curled tightly around the cocktail glass. Any more pressure and it would shatter into pieces in his hand. Hastily, he drops the glass.

“What the fuck, Tetsu! Are you two really friends?! That asshole is gonna kill him!”

Kuroko lets go of his hand to rub tiredly at his face. There’s a well-worn exhaustion there that makes Aomine feel the pub owner had gone through too many similar situations concerning the redhead to have any more energy or conviction left to intervene.

“I actually think it’s gonna end the other way around.”

Aomine can’t believe Kuroko could still joke about this at a time like that.

“You’re still going on about that crap?! Kagami is a fucking angel he won't hurt anyone. I’m going after them.”

As Aomine gets to his feet, Kuroko quickly reaches out to grab at the sleeve of his leather jacket, expression now somewhat desperate and pleading.

“Please don’t. You don’t know the whole story.”

“And you do?”

Kuroko shakes his head, and lets his hand drop. “No, but I trust Kagami-kun’s judgment.”

Aomine snorts in derision. “His judgement is absolute shit and if you trust it, then you’re fucking mental!”

He exits the pub right before Kagami gets into the asshole's car. Then he follows the black sedan in his sports car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enters stalker!aomine :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuroko reflects on Kagami's personality and 'condition'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: brief mentions of abuse; angst??

His first - and fateful - encounter with Kagami Taiga occurred on a deserted, rundown streetball court near Ignite at two in the morning while walking back home from the pub after a hectic night. The redhead didn’t notice him standing behind the low iron fence surrounding the court - no one really does, though, he has been told to have a ghostlike presence; a trait that had served him well during his basketball prime and now with his shady establishment that he inherited from his grandfather - and he continued breaking past imaginary opponents and shooting hoops unperturbed for at least a whole hour later, in that flawless form and with such unrelenting energy and insane accuracy (it was past midnight, how was he _not_ tired?) that it left Kuroko breathless and rooted to the spot, widened blue eyes drinking in every perfectly executed move like he was in a dream.

Something about the way Kagami played basketball - so free and assured and life-changing - reminded Kuroko of the old Aomine; that young boy with unguarded expressions and sincere smiles before the dark side of talent got to him and turned him into a bitter, cynical man with deep frown lines etched on his forehead and a general lack of interest in all that used to matter.

There was no doubt about it, though, not with that distinct play, those super high jumps and thunderous dunks that came dangerously too close to dislodge the hook, that Kagami Taiga could have easily been the light to his shadow, and if Kuroko was still in college and played in the same team as Kagami, they would have become what Kuroko failed to sustain back then with Aomine. They would have been a thing of beauty on the court, awing the crowds and the opponents alike; they would have turned heads and made headlines. They’d have become, not unstoppable because that wasn’t what Kuroko had ever wanted, but one of a kind, a force to be reckoned with, feared and admired in equal parts by any team that had the _pleasure_ to go against them.

In short, they would have become basketball legends that could easily surpass the _Generation of Miracles_ and beautifully sidestep their fall from grace in the process.

As he continued to watch the redhead play, a sense of regret and loss that he thought he had overcome many years ago reared its ugly head inside his chest, and the first thing that came out of his mouth as Kagami finished his game and walked back to the bench near where Kuroko was still standing, picking up a bottle and tipping his head slightly back to take a gulp and his eyes accidentally falling on Kuroko and spitting the water out all over himself in his surprise, was, “ _you’re the light, and I’m the shadow_.”

It was cathartic; letting out those words that he thought he never would again. It didn’t matter that Kagami had no idea what he was talking about. It was of little consequence that the perfect image Kuroko drew up in his mind of the two of them playing professional basketball together would never be realized. What mattered was that Kagami was here - _finally_ he was here; at least four years late, but some _miracles_ took a little longer to happen, and it didn’t make them any less metamorphic when they did. Kagami was here, and his light was so bright that it chased all the darkness around them away, and Kuroko gradually began to realize that it wasn’t just the redhead’s basketball that was the source of his light. Although they sometimes met on the same streetball court for casual plays, Kuroko knew his basketball years were far behind him and his attachment to the sport was not as vital as it used to be. No. Kagami’s light was in the passionate glint in his crimson eyes; in the pure sweetness of his smiles that stretched wide across his face; it was in his coyness draped endearingly all over his tall frame, and the way he devoured burgers after burgers like the hounds of hell were after him, but always remembered to offer one to him even though Kuroko knew how much Kagami loved his burgers, and if it were anyone else, if it were Murasakibara or Aomine, or even Kise, nothing would have compelled them to part ways with what they loved. They were selfish. Everyone is, to varying degrees. It’s just a very human thing to be selfish. Except, Kagami wasn’t.

Sometimes Kuroko thought that Kagami wasn’t _human_.  

And the more time he got to spend around the redhead, either on that old basketball court or at Maji Burger’s or Ignite, or even that one time he was invited to Kagami’s place and the redhead baked him the most delicious okonomiyaki he had ever tasted in his life, the more he began to realize that Kagami was perfect in all the ways that Aomine was not. He is _kind_. Intrinsically so. Aomine occasionally does things that could be considered kind, but he is not a kind person in essence, and always does them consciously, considering the benefits that act of kindness would bring him. But Kagami’s acts of kindness are like second nature, he does them on the spur of the moment, no strings attached; sometimes even against his own best interests, and he never asks for favors in return. He’s not arrogant, although he has every reason to be. He’s an amazing basketball player, and even more so than Aomine if their game in the nationals was anything to go by, and he’s beautiful in a way that appeals to almost every taste, gender and sexuality, and he lives in an upscale part of Tokyo, so his parents must be rich, meaning he most likely had a privileged childhood. He’s bashful and considerate and extremely loyal. The best kind of friend anyone could ever ask for. A hothead sometimes, loudmouthed and kind of naive, but his reactions actually come across as charming rather than off-putting. In short - but how could you really describe such a larger-than-life person in just a few words? - Kagami Taiga was an angel. In a way that made you trust him wholly, that pulled at all of your protective instincts, that made you believe in the good of humanity again.

But then something happened that threw a wrench into Kuroko’s neatly structured analysis of Kagami’s personality. It was during his sixth time meeting with the redhead, at a Maji Burger’s near the court after an intense, exhilarating game, that Kagami asked him, in that shy mumble and eyes darting away and a hand rubbing his neck, if he knew a place where the wrong sort of people usually hang out.

The question _floored_ him, and Kuroko was described by everyone who knew him to be the least affected to outside stimuli. He asked Kagami, in a measured tone that he hoped did not come out judgmental, why he was looking for such a place, and the redhead mumbled something about having to hook up with some ‘assholes’. Kuroko pressed again, _‘Why do you have to hang out with the wrong sort, Kagami-kun?’_ but the redhead shook his head, ‘ _Forget about it, Kuroko. I shouldn’t have asked.’_

His voice was laced with pain and despair, and his eyes suddenly looked dull and dead, and maybe it was the fact that Kuroko knew Kagami was not the type of person to ask people for things, or was used to being let down every time he did, that made him blurt out that he actually knew of a place like that ( _There’s actually a pub around here? I never noticed it_ . _Are you sure about it, Kuroko?’ ‘Yes, I’m quite sure, Kagami-kun. After all, I own the place.’ ‘You own a pub? At this age? Shouldn’t you be in college or something?’ ‘It’s kind of a long, boring story, Kagami-kun. Would you like to see the pub instead?’)_ And when those blood red eyes began to sparkle again with renewed hope, and a grateful smile spread tenderly across Kagami’s face, Kuroko was conflicted between feeling guilty for what he was going to put Kagami through or happy for putting that pure, relieved smile on the redhead’s face.

That night, he introduced Kagami to the hell that was Ignite. And from there on, he had to watch the redhead slip deeper and deeper into the circles of consuming fire and crawl his way back up to the surface with angry bruises that took longer than a week to heal, or the shading was just too deep to be covered up by concealer, and Kuroko had to be a fool not to realize what happened to Kagami every night he left Ignite with a man that had criminal records, and Kuroko _was_ a fool, only of the worst kind. The kind that knew what was happening, but couldn’t do anything about it.

Until one time, Kagami left Ignite with the leader of a notorious drug ring that had been evading the police for years and adding to the pile of his many criminal activities. Kuroko had a very bad feeling about it, watching the redhead being almost dragged out of the pub, even though he was at least a head taller and his shoulders were broader. Takuma Aiwa wasn’t someone to mess with. He was smart, psychopathic, and methodical in his cruelty. He had no qualms about killing or maiming anyone who crossed him. He was also an established homophobe for God’s sake, just what was Kagami thinking?

But the redhead was out of the door before Kuroko could find his voice to object. And by the time he ran out of the pub to stop the basketball prodigy from making probably the worst mistake of his short life, the two were nowhere in sight.

Kuroko spent that night tossing and turning in sweat-soaked bed sheets with his subconscious tangled in a web of continuous nightmares about Kagami’s mutilated body. The next morning, though, the frontpage of almost every newspaper in circulation in Tokyo was featuring the gruesome and shocking murder of the notorious kingpin. The Internet was swarming with the pictures of the mangled dead body and speculations about who had finally managed to put such a violent end to the ever elusive, supposedly invincible drug lord.

Only Kuroko knew whose company Takuma had kept the night before his murder. And Kagami, regardless of the noticeable bruise on his jaw and a barely-there limp to his walk almost a week later, was alive whereas Takuma was not, and Kuroko wondered how. That was when he started digging into all of Kagami’s previous one-night stands, finding, to his horror and utter fascination, that every single one of them had been murdered in the same gruesome way Takuma had been, with the time of death exactly the morning after Kagami left Ignite with them.

The next time after his discovery when Kagami showed up at Ignite, (and Kuroko had checked, the man Kagami had picked the week prior was dead, too) the pub-owner decided to finally confront the redhead on his dangerous taste in men and demand explanation for how every single one of his hook-ups had ended up dead after Kagami - the perfect angel that he appeared to be - was done with them.

“Why do you sleep with dangerous men, Kagami-kun? And I know some of them were actually homophobes.”

Kagami snorted his martini out of his nose and broke into a cough, still unaccustomed to Kuroko’s sudden appearances, or maybe surprised that Kuroko, whose business was thriving only thanks to his diligence in keeping his nose out of other people’s businesses, had finally decided to confront him on his deranged sexual escapades.

“I have a condition. It’s...complicated.” Kagami tried to evade with the guiltiest expression on his face, a hand rubbing his neck and eyes cast away.

Kuroko grabbed his collection of newspaper clippings from under the counter and placed them before Kagami. The redhead gasped softly as his eyes fell on the papers and their incriminating contents.

“Does your condition have anything to do with these murder reports?”

Belatedly, Kuroko realized that his characteristic bland tone and blasé expression had turned what he had hoped to be an easy conversation into an interrogation. And Kagami naturally looked uncomfortable and unable to keep the guilt-ridden expression off his suddenly paled face. He could make a decent murderer - if one wasn’t blindsided by his angelic demeanor, one could see that he had the built to easily subdue his victims, and he had a mind for strategy. While his academic endeavors left a lot to be desired ( _I swear I’m not stupid, Kuroko. I’m just not good at reading kanji!’_ ), on court he was a prodigy, able to predict his opponents’ moves and come up with the best way to break past their defenses in mere seconds. Yes, while Kuroko could see the potential in Kagami for being an efficient murderer, he was a _terrible_ liar. His face was so open, his eyes so expressive, they just gave everything away. If he really was a killer, he wouldn’t last a minute in a real interrogation room.

That is why Kuroko was ready to believe Kagami when he stuttered his way through a measly explanation. “Oh. Uh...I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t. I just...I just slept with them.”

Which left Kuroko with only one plausible theory. “Are you cursed, Kagami-kun?”

Kagami’s odd-colored eyes widened, staring at him for a long minute, silent with his mouth hanging open, and then something akin to relief washed over his tense features.

“Yeah.” He sighed the affirmative word in such a bewildered and yet relieved tone that Kuroko knew he was telling the truth, even if his truth was too bizarre a concept for anyone else to believe. Not for Kuroko, though. Not when it concerned Kagami.

“Is there any way I can help?”

Kagami was still looking at him with rounded eyes, like Kuroko was an alien, like he had just dropped into an alternate reality where things that shouldn’t normally make sense just _did_ , like a terribly heavy weight had just been shoved off his shoulders and thrown him off-balance.

“No. I mean you already are with the pub and...you know, keeping this to yourself. I couldn’t ask for more.”

“What about the curse, though? Is there any way to lift it?”

“I actually came here to look for a way.”

That actually explained his return after so many years, and at a time when Kagami seemed to have been on the right track to make it big in America. But why here, of all places in the world? “You mean Japan?”

Kagami nodded, eyes darting away as he seemed to be lost in some unpleasant memory. “Someone said I might be able to find the answer here. I donno. I’m still looking.”

He might have known Kagami for only a few months now, but there was something about the redhead, the scars hidden expertly beneath his flawless skin, the throbbing pain behind his bloodshot eyes, the loneliness that ate away at him as he faked perfect, friendly smiles, and the godawful knowledge that once a week, he spent the night with a stranger that would hurt him in the worst way possible and he probably broke and had no one but himself to pick up the pieces, that made Kuroko care about him as deeply as he would a very dear, younger brother.

“Will you be alright, Kagami-kun?”

Kagami gave him a tired smile, sad and resigned around the corners, the ghost of many sleepless nights suddenly catching up with him. “One way or another, Kuroko.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a few paragraphs, I swear, and then we would have Aomine and Kagami's scene. But then Kuroko happened and he had //a lot// to say about Kagami. Bear with me, I actually needed to establish the kind of personality that Kagami has for plot reasons. Sorry if this chapter was kinda boring.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aomine butts in on Kagami's 'problem' and gets more than he bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ: This chapter is really heavy on triggers, is very disturbing; in fact the rape/non-con tag is mostly because of this chapter. Please read at your own discretion. I can't emphasize this hard enough, guys. Skip this chapter if non-con elements are triggering for you.

**Warning:** rape/non-con elements, some violence, mentions of blood and (almost) throwing up, Aomine's foul mouth

 

Aomine follows the car all the way to the outskirts of town. At some point he has to slow down and fall behind as there are only the two of them on the road and he doesn't want to draw suspicion to his rather expensive sports car. It takes him a few wrong turns and a lot of frustrating lost time to finally get where the black sedan is parked. In front of a shabby cabin in the middle of fuck knows where. Everything about this situation screams _suicide_. Does Kagami want to die?!

He takes his brass knuckles - a gag gift from that annoying blond model Kise - out of the glove compartment before stepping out of the car. He doesn’t pause in his fast stride toward the cabin. Any hesitation and he would start to think about what the fuck he was doing in unknown territory at the dead of night, wearing brass knuckles like some sort of a seasoned yakuza, ready to smash some heads in. This isn’t him. The part that is compelling him to throw all caution and common sense to the wind, single-minded in his rescue attempt like some goddamn superhero. Or maybe it is. Maybe this part has always been with him, simmering under his skin, waiting for someone worth his while to come out and play. He doesn’t dwell on this epiphany for now. There is no time.

By the time he gets close to the front door of the rundown cabin, he can hear faint sounds of protest that could pass for muffled shouts. He doesn’t waste another second. The door is unlocked, much to his relief and surprise, and once in, the muffled shouts become painfully too familiar. He tracks them to a room down a narrow hallway, his heart pounding a mad, furious beat against his ribcage, fingers clenched around the brass knuckles, and he wills his mind away from matching those pained, stifled cries to the state Kagami must be in right now.

 _Stop...stop!_ The words finally manage to break through whatever had been trying to keep his mouth shut, and they echo ominously through the small, barely-furnished cabin, hitting Aomine like a vicious punch to the gut, and he doesn’t think, he doesn’t stop, he just throws his whole weight against the closed door to the room where Kagami’s pained shouts are coming from, and he nearly takes the door off its hinges as he stumbles inside and almost faceplants into the floor but then his eyes fall on the man bent over Kagami’s prone body, with one hand securing the redhead’s wrists behind his back and the other dipped between his thighs, and he quickly pulls himself to his full height, swings his arm and punches the man hard in the side of his head before he could even turn around.

The man gives a short-lived groan of pain and shock at the vicious, unexpected impact before his bulky weight topples over to the floor like a heavy sack of potatoes.  

Aomine lets out a shuddering breath, ignores the immense pain around his knuckles and the blood stains on the brass, kicks the unconscious body to the side with all the contempt and disgust he has ever felt in his life, and turns his head to where Kagami is lying face down with his legs wide open on the bed.

Aomine watches transfixed, muted and spellbound - he couldn’t look away if he wanted to, and god did he want to - as Kagami reaches behind his back and pulls what looks like a beer bottle out of his ass.

Aomine almost drops to his knees, feeling faint and nauseous, as the bottle makes a sleek, wet sound sliding through sweats and thick, dark _blood_.

The wrinkled sheet between Kagami’s thighs is smudged with specks of red. Aomine covers his mouth and finally manages to turn his head to the side, retching and forcing the bile down.  

 _Fuck_. Fuck.

He breathes slowly through his nose, the poignant smell of sweat and blood permeating the stuffy air of the small bedroom not doing any favor for his upset stomach.

But this isn’t about him now. With an admirable amount of stubbornness and resolve, Aomine staves off the urge to empty the contents of his stomach on the floor and turns back to Kagami, who has turned over and dragged himself to lean against the headboard. He looks, in addition to pained, surprisingly pissed-off. 

“Kagami! Are you okay?” His voice comes out a shrill, and he nearly chokes on his saliva.

The redhead’s thick, split eyebrows, which had been furrowed in pain and stifled fury, rise up under the fringe of his dark hair sticky with sweat as his widened eyes take into the unconscious body at the foot of the bed. The look on his face resembles someone who is about to have a panic attack.

“You _aho_! Why did you do that? He hadn’t had sex with me yet!” He screams the words in a clear state of hysterics, hands tugging painfully at his hair, crimson eyes wide and wet with a sheen of unshed tears.

Kagami’s unexpected reaction breaks Aomine out of his trance, and throws him unceremoniously into a fit of rage and utter bewilderment.

“What the fuck? You still wanted this asshole’s dick in you?! Look what he’s done to your ass! He’s torn your insides!”

Kagami closes his eyes and takes several deep, calming breaths to fight off his panic, then looks down at the blood stained sheet tangled between his thighs with a dazed look in his eyes. He looks in no hurry to cover himself up, and Aomine’s eyes are back on the morbid scene again, unable to look away. His stomach is acting up again, bile rising up in his throat, cold sweats sliding down the back of his neck.

He feels like he’s standing in the midst of a terrible nightmare or the scariest horror movie ever made.

“Well, yeah I noticed. But now he won’t get what he deserved, and I can’t get my much needed sleep, and I’m more fucked now than when I started.” Tears suddenly start to run down Kagami’s paled cheeks and he rubs them away angrily with the back of his hand.

Aomine doesn’t understand a word Kagami just said.

“Huh? You were planning to take a nap after getting raped?! You wanted to go to sleep with your asshole bleeding all over the sheets?”

“No need to get so poetic, Ahomine.”

Kagami winces as he swings his legs over the side of the bed and Aomine forgets to get annoyed at the use of that offensive nickname upon seeing pain settle so thoroughly on the redhead’s face like it owns every inch of that sun-kissed canvas.

He rushes toward the redhead, arms shooting forward to catch him before he crashes to the floor.

Kagami’s skin feels clammy and unnaturally cold under his touch.

“Hey, easy there! Let me call an ambulance.”

Kagami recoils from his touch in a violent jerk and goes crashing hard into the wall. “No! You’ve already done enough damage, _aho_.”

Aomine wonders if it’s the shock that is hampering his thought process or if it’s Kagami that is making no fucking sense. “Damage? I fucking _saved_ you.”

And just like that Kagami goes down. Not his body, which is still naked and bruised and bleeding, leaning heavily against the wall for support, but the resolve, the stitches, the bandages, that were holding him together, draining out of him in an instant. “No, you didn’t. I haven’t slept for six days.” His voice barely rises above a whisper.

“Huh?! Why the fuck not? And what the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

There’s a pause as Kagami bites into his lip (his bruised lip, with dry blood caked between the cracks), and the silence is suffocating, pressing around Aomine’s throat like invisible hands, and it just occurs to him that what he’s feeling, past the surface shock and the rage and confusion, is a deep-seated unadulterated sense of _fear_. In a stranger’s cabin deep in the woods at the dead of night, with an unconscious or probably dead body lying around and the man who has come to mean so much to him in a little more than a month bruised and bleeding between the thighs — of course he’s fucking terrified.

Kagami lets out a sigh, deep and somehow resonating the pain he must be in, and only when his warm breath brushes against Aomine’s chilled cheek does the bluenette realize how close he’s standing to the other man’s _naked_ body.

Aomine takes a few steps back, suddenly too attuned to the coppery smell of blood and the slight tremors of Kagami’s sculpted body, as the redhead closes his eyes and says in a resigned tone, “I need to have sex to be able to sleep.”

Aomine’s mind reels at this new bizarre revelation. “That’s just getting even more weird! If you want sex, I can give it to you! In whatever form you like. I’ll take care of you!”

Much later, after the revelations and the admissions and resignations, it occurs to him that the idea of having sex with Kagami as it passed through his mind just then was as far from sensual and lust-addled as it could possibly get. It was a desperate attempt at help. There was no selfish desire in it. It was, even already at that very moment, a proclamation of _love,_ which goes completely unnoticed or ignored by the redhead.

Kagami rubs at a spot high on his temple, a clear sign of headache. “ _Aho_...shut up. If we fuck, you’re gonna die.”

“You think I can’t handle you?”

Kagami gives him a look, thick eyebrows stuck between frowning in pain and rising in amusement. “I’m...I’m cursed.”

No matter how many times it’s been said to him, it still sounds as ridiculous as the first time. “You fucking believe that shit?”

“Of course I do,” he says in a soft tone, deceptively calm and under control and for a moment Aomine forgets about Kagami’s state. “I’m in the middle of it, aren’t I? I know what's going on.”

“What the _fuck_ is going on? Kagami, Tell me!”

The open, vulnerable expression on the redhead’s face snaps shut, and his voice becomes authoritative, “No. You need to leave. We _both_ need to leave.”

He looks down at the unmoving lump on the floor for the briefest moment, and then begins to slide along the wall and take some stumbling steps toward the heap of his discarded clothes near the door.

Aomine feels like he needs to physically restrain himself from reaching out a hand to help the redhead move around. The stubborn basketball prodigy had made it clear earlier that he didn’t appreciate his touch.

“You’re in no fucking shape to walk.” He observes darkly, feeling vindictive enough to hope that the asshole he knocked out earlier did not survive the punch.

“I’m gonna call someone.” Kagami squats down with some difficulty, and takes out a cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans.

“Another douchebag?”

He shakes his head as he taps the screen of his cell phone. “No. He’s a friend. Don’t worry, it’s okay. I’m okay.”

Whoever Kagami was trying to reach doesn’t pick up. He heaves a sigh, shoves the phone back into the pocket of his jeans and struggles with putting his long legs through them.

Aomine watches with a deep frown as Kagami gets out of breath and breaks into sweats, his face contorted in pain, as he goes through the simple task of putting his pants on.

“Why don't you just let me help you?” He asks in clear frustration.

Kagami finally looks at him, and it irritates Aomine that he just now notices the shadows under the redhead’s eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept in forever. _Six days._ Christ. Was he serious about that?

“Because you’re obsessed with me and you need to keep your distance.”

“Fucking hell. Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Unless you want to rape me, too? In that case, I won’t stop you because you’d deserve to die.”

It’s not just the words — those horrid, harrowing words said in such a dull, matter-of-fact tone — that shake Aomine down to his core, but the way Kagami has arranged his body to strike a seductive pose, unconsciously, almost like a deeply-engraved instinct, and it’s ironic how the very same thing that constantly puts Kagami’s life in danger — his natural good looks coupled with his learned skills to arouse lust in others — has become the only way for him to survive, and Aomine doesn’t know if he’d burst into hysterical laughter or tears once he let go of the tight hold over his emotions.

“What the actual fuck?!” he explodes instead, because anger is always a safe outlet to fall back on. “I like you, _baka_! I’m not gonna rape you. I wanna make you feel good. I wanna do everything you want. You’re…,” Aomine pauses to catch his breath, and decides not to say what he had intended to say at seeing Kagami’s empty stare ( _you’re my soulmate, can’t you see? I’ve been waiting for you all my life_.) He looks so untouchable, so out of reach, like he isn’t standing on the same plane of existence as him. “I like you, Kagami. I really like you.” He deflates, shoving his hands into his pockets, averted eyes and hunched posture, as if liking the redhead is a stupid, futile effort — one that your friends would make fun of you for and your parents advise you against.  

Kagami looks to be of the same opinion. “You shouldn’t. This will get nowhere. Not anywhere either of us would like. Get out while you still can.”

Aomine exhales loudly in the suffocating quietness of the room. This was his second rejection; the one he had promised himself to walk away from the redhead when he received it.

And yet, his heart isn’t in it. His heart isn’t where it should be. It’s still with Kagami — that stubborn, oblivious bastard — lying hopelessly near his feet, beating uselessly like a little pup wagging its tail for his attention.

He runs a hand through his short dark blue hair, in a clear display of exasperation and despair.

“Okay. But let me at least take you to a hospital. I can’t just leave you bleeding like that.”

Another vehement shake of the head that sets Aomine’s teeth on edge. _What now? “_ No. I can't go to hospital.”

“Why the hell not?” Aomine is just this close from starting to tear his hair out.

“They put me under. I can't lose consciousness.”

“Why are you so scared of losing consciousness? What’s gonna happen?”

Kagami averts his eyes and bites into his lip, a nervous habit, causing a scabbed-over split to bleed again. “Terrible things.”

“Tell me.”

“No,” he says with finality, and pulls a wrinkled black t-shirt over his head and shoves his bare feet into a pair of expensive-looking black leather boots. “Now get out.”

They are just running in circles now, with Kagami having turned out to be just as stubborn as he is. Aomine is never one to make compromises, arrogant and self-assured enough to bend others to his own will, but for this case, he will make an exception because he really wants to help the redhead whether he likes it or not. “Listen. I know someone. He’s a friend. And a doctor of sorts. He can help you. Get you stitched up. I’ll ask him not to put you under. He owes me a favor, he’ll listen.”

Now dressed, and the denim of his jeans thick enough not to let the blood seep through, Kagami looks slightly less like a rape victim, and more like someone who’s about to pass out from a severe case of sleep deprivation. “Don't cash out your favors on me, _aho_. I’m not worth it.”

Aomine would’ve _punched_ some sense into the stubborn redhead with the shittiest self-esteem ever, if he was standing close enough. “Shut up. Just let me do this one thing, for fuck’s sake.”

Kagami tilts his head, causing his black-toned bangs to fall to the side, revealing a bruise around his temple. Aomine suddenly gets the urge to kick the passed-out asshole in his ugly face. “And then you’ll promise to leave me alone?”

Aomine almost lets out a scream in frustration, but manages to turn it into a huff of hot air through his nose. He stands there for a moment, silent and unmoving, staring at Kagami who is looking back at him expectantly, like being left alone with his fucking _demons_ is preferable to having someone like Aomine around, like he doesn’t mind the bruises and the bleeding and the pain at all, like he can deal with it all on his own and he’s not really about to fall flat on his face in a minute or two (and even if he was, what else is new, right?)

“Damn it, Kagami," Aomine says through gritted teeth.

“Promise! Or I won’t come with you.”

“I…,” _I can’t. Don’t ask me something impossible like that. I haven’t really cared about anyone with such intensity before, not even Satsuki and Tetsu, because those two have never really been in such a vulnerable, dangerous situation, and I want to help you, damnit, because you need it and I like you…_ , but none of that passes through his lips. His eyes are on Kagami. His tanned skin has taken on a sickly pallid tone, and there’s a noticeable tremor to his bleeding lip, and despite his height and bulk he looks kind of fragile in the dim light, and his red eyes are shadowed and _pleading_ with him to accept his terms, no matter how crazy and against his own best interest those terms are.

Aomine swallows, and heaves a deep sigh. “Okay. I promise. Now let’s go, you stubborn fucker.”

And so they go.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes i wonder why i’m even writing this fic. Hmm.


	6. Chapter 6

**Warning:** graphic description of physical injury ; rape aftermath 

 

The moment he stepped into Aomine’s sleek sports car, Kagami knew it was a mistake. Yet, it wasn’t a mistake he could undo, because it wasn’t of his own creation. Not entirely, anyway. It was a struggle, a relentless tug-of-war, between his sanity and his damn conscience. He knew Aomine was obsessed; he wasn’t the first man approaching him with the same telling signs, after all. He also knew Aomine was the worst kind of obsessed. The ones that didn’t take no for an answer; the ones with self-deceptions and willful ignorance of the facts, because they were single-minded in their pursuit of what they wanted, of what they _thought_ was good for them, regardless of the risks and the stupidity and futility of the whole endeavor, and they were used to get what they wanted, so why should they stop now?

Aomine was going to be a total disaster, and Kagami would end up blaming himself entirely for that, when or if it finally happened.

It’s funny, how the ride with Aomine to the clinic, where the blue-haired man had promised him safety and treatment, is filled with more tension and a suffocating sense of impending doom compared to his earlier ride to the cabin, while strapped in the passenger seat of the car of a fucking rapist.

And Aomine’s hands are clutching the wheel in a death grip instead of clawing at Kagami’s thighs and pressing hard against his cock like a ravenous beast, and the car is swaddled in a thick layer of awkward silence and smelling of new leather and Aomine’s faint cardamom-like cologne instead of swarming with dirty words and rough grunts and reeking of stale body odor and booze.

At least with that rapist, Kagami knew where he was going, and what would become of him one way or another, and he had resigned himself to the coming pain and the humiliation and the _ruin_ , because what else could he do if he wanted to _live_? But with Aomine, he has no clear vision of the outcome. He doesn’t know what the likeliest scenarios would be and if he could respond to them accordingly. With Aomine, there is the matter of morals, and guilt and fear and uncertainty and the thoughts are exhausting and his head is pounding and spinning, it’s the blood loss and sleep deprivation and the earlier, barely averted panic attack and god what is he going to do now? And he has half a mind to open the passenger’s side door and throw himself out on the road, because this has been a huge mistake and Aomine might have promised to leave him alone after this, but there had been no weight to his words and Kagami wasn’t stupid.

He has to do the right thing, no matter how wrong everything in his life is. The burden is his alone to carry.

Kagami leans slightly forward in his seat to conceal his fingers curled around the door handle, and he closes his eyes, taking a deep breath and holding it there as he tries to calm his nerves. He didn’t hear the distinctive _click_ of the auto-lock, so if he were to pull the handle now, he would be able to throw himself out of the car before Aomine could realize what was happening.

He would survive the impact. Of course he would. There would be more of his blood spilling on the asphalt, and his bones would break and poke grotesquely through his flesh and he would feel the crunch of his skull as it caved in and severed arteries and went into his brain, and he would be in unimaginable pain and coughing up blood and trying to draw oxygen into punctured lungs while missing half of his face, and then...and then he would be alright.   

It’s this thought that stills his hand on the door handle. There is no suffering greater than living through broken bones rearranging themselves inside his battered body and damaged lungs pushing rivers of blood out of his mouth, nose and ears, and tissues regrowing and mending the holes while he remains cruelly conscious through the pain of it all. He knows that suffering. He doesn’t think he will ever be strong enough to willingly go through a repeat of it.

“You okay?”

Kagami is startled out of his thoughts at the sound of Aomine’s deep voice, breaking the stifling silence like a stone thrown against glass.

He pulls back from the door, running his hand through his sweat-soaked hair and giving the other man a tight smile.

No, “Yeah”, and not because of the blood still oozing out of him and drying on his skin, or the steady gaze of those crazed eyes boring holes into his skull through the rearview mirror, but because his suffering is never-ending, a vicious circle that goes spiraling down into nine levels of hell, and he is dragging an innocent into the midst of it all because he’s being selfish, because he’s fucking stupid, because he’s terrified.

He wished he had never met Aomine Daiki at all.

Kagami has no appreciation for the shitty irony in the role reversal.

 

*******

 

They stumble their way into _Oha Asa_ ’s clinic after some 30-minute drive (with Aomine going over the speed limit, _‘It’s in the middle of fuck-knows-where, Kagami, calm the fuck down._ ), with Kagami’s arm slung around his neck after much protest and bickering, and his own arm wound loosely around the redhead’s waist, (' _I can walk, you know.’ ‘No, you can’t. Now, let’s not be a stubborn little shit about this and exacerbate your injury.’ ‘Exacerbate. Do you even know how to spell the word?’ Kagami said with a wry half-smile on his alarmingly pale face. ‘Shut up, as if you’re any better,’ said Aomine as he grabbed the redhead’s arm and half carried him inside.)_

It’s been a long time, years even, since he had a reason to visit Midorima’s back alley establishment. They played basketball together in Teikou when the green-haired man was in his last year of middle school. After the team split across the country following that _scandal_ , Aomine did not bother to keep in touch with any of his old teammates. Tetsu was the only one he would actively seek to meet up with. Kise was annoying and texted him a lot of times even though Aomine barely texted him back. Murasakibara had moved all the way to Akita and the last thing he heard about him was that he was working in some pastry shop or another. And Midorima...well, he was already two years older than them, and smarter than them, and yet somehow, he ended up owning a back alley clinic near the edges of the city. The aftermath of what happened in their middle school seems to have affected the lives of some of them more than the others. Aomine apparently was the luckiest of them all. He was the only one to be granted a sports scholarship in one of Japan’s top-tier universities, despite his undesirable circumstances that followed him like a shadow all through his high school years. The others didn’t even pursue a university degree after what happened in Teiko. Kise went into modelling right after finishing high school and Tetsu took over his grandfather’s izakaya, much to everyone’s utter surprise.

Well, it’s all water under the bridge now, and all that.

 _Oha Asa_ clinic is comprised of only two rooms. One is the operating room to their left, and the other, which is basically the first thing you see the moment you step into the building, functions as both the waiting room and the doctor’s office, furnished in a simple wooden desk, a swivel chair, and an old black leather couch that has seen better days.

The young doctor is at his desk, engrossed in a book, when the two arrive. He raises his head in alarm, probably not used to having patients so late at night, or if at all, Aomine sometimes wonders, and his green eyes widen behind his rectangular spectacles upon seeing Aomine at his clinic after so long.

Aomine gives him a cheeky grin and forgoes the pleasantries. “Hey, Midorima. I need you to patch this guy up.”

The green-haired man puts his book aside and raises to his feet. He meets them at the middle of the room, pushes his glasses up the narrow bridge of his nose and gives Kagami a once-over. His thin brows furrow as he tries to pinpoint where the redhead might need patching up. Other than being deathly pale and sweating bullets, with that nasty bruise hidden behind his longish bangs, he seems okay. After all, there is no blood stain on his clothes, or any _visible_ wounds that would require stitches.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He…uh…,” Aomine hesitates, uncomfortable with voicing the harrowing word. He looks at Kagami helplessly, and the redhead sighs in exasperation.

“Hardcore sex. My anus tore up and it’s bleeding.” And his tone was so flat and matter-of-fact as if he had said those words many times before.

The thought curls like a cancerous lump around Aomine’s head, and he lets out an exasperated huff of air through his nose.

Midorima’s eyes widen considerably behind his sophisticated glasses, making Aomine wonder if he had ever had to treat a rape victim or knew how to, and then the doctor directs a stinging glare at him.

“Did you do this to him?”

“What?! Fuck no! I’m not like that, you bastard. I saved him.” Aomine seethes. He may not have the most pleasant personality, but damnit, he’s not that vile.

Midorima wrinkles his brows in confusion. “Saved? Was the sex not consensual?”

This time, it’s Kagami’s turn to glare at him.

“It was. This bluehead idiot here just doesn’t want to accept that sometimes consensual sex could lead to accidents.”

Aomine almost sputters in sheer disbelief at those words, and what he says next comes out of his mouth without any filter or consideration. “What about that asshole pushing a bottle up your ass and you screaming at him to stop was exactly _consensual?”_

Kagami pushes Aomine away with an angry shove, and barely manages to keep his balance as he slightly swings on his shaky legs.

“Shut the fuck up, _ah_ o! You don’t know anything! And for the hundredth time, you didn’t fucking save me! You did the exact opposite of saving! You fucked up everything!”

“What is going on here?” Midorima asks in alarm, and Aomine has a brief moment to realize how bizarre the situation really is before the redhead sways violently on his feet and crashes hard into Aomine, all muscled chest and tall, broad physique almost knocking the blunette off his own feet.

Aomine grunts more in surprise than actual pain as he grabs Kagami tightly around his waist, and throws a distressed look at Midorima over the redhead’s shoulder. “Shit! Maybe you should first do something about this fucker’s problem and then we’ll have a nice chat about what the actual fuck is going on?”

Midorima, always the professional, agrees without further ado as he steps forward and takes Kagami’s almost lifeless body from Aomine and starts walking the redhead toward the operating room.

“N-no...no anesthetics.” Kagami mumbles with difficulty with his mouth pressed against Midorima’s shoulder, causing the doctor to stop in his tracks.

“What was that?”

Aomine suddenly remembers why the stubborn redhead had even agreed to come to Midorima’s clinic in the first place. “Oh right! Yeah. The reason I brought him here instead of an actual hospital was because he didn't want to be put under.”

Midorima gives him a puzzled look. “What? If he has rectal bleeding, then I need to -”

All of a sudden, the faint redhead wrenches himself out of Midorima’s hold and launches at Aomine like a feral animal, fingers curling desperately into his shirt and scarlet eyes widened in absolute terror. “No! Aomine, no! Don’t let him do that, Aomine, or I fucking kill you!”

Alarmed, and slightly more disturbed than he knows what to do with, Aomine takes a firm hold of Kagami’s trembling hands, and tries to sooth the redhead before he gives himself a panic attack. “Okay, okay calm down! I won't let him, I promise!”

Kagami looks at him with pleading eyes, and Aomine knows, with as much clarity as he can muster up at the time, that he would go to the end of the world and he would plunge readily into the deepest circle of hell, for the redhead in his arms to stop looking at him as if his world would fall apart if he simply lost consciousness.

 

*******

 

After putting Kagami down on the bed and the redhead assuring him that he is capable of undressing himself and putting on the hospital gown, so _will you please step out for a sec so I can change?_ Midorima walks out of the room, closes the door, then crosses his arms over his chest and gives the anxious blunette a pointed look. “Aomine? Explain.”

Aomine scratches the back of his head, feeling slightly intimidated under that powerful glare. “Look, Midorima. Kagami here has a condition. He can’t be put under or some serious complications may happen. So yeah. Don’t do that.”

It was a lame explanation, but Aomine had no idea why Kagami was so hostile to the idea of losing consciousness. Everything about the redhead was confusing as hell, and Aomine felt like he needed at least a whole week of sleep to get his head back in the game.

“But I can’t operate on him without knocking him out first. He will be in immense pain, not to mention the uncomfortable position.”

“Well, you owe me a favor, remember? For getting Satsuki to find you Takao’s number? I’m cashing it in now.”

Midorima raises a brow in surprise. After all, scoring favors with the green-haired man is as valuable and as rare an occurrence as winning the lottery. Aomine could have basically asked for anything, and the young doctor would have been duty-bound to deliver on it.

“Why?

Aomine bites his lower lip, and averts his eyes in restlessness. “He’s...he’s important.”

“Ah, I see. You love him.”

He could have denied it, and Midorima had no business to poke his nose into his personal affairs anyway, but the lump in his throat that was formed the moment he saw Kagami bleeding on that rapist’s bed, and which refuses to go away, stops him from uttering anything more than a stuttered “M-may be.”

And then, just like that, Midorima concedes. “Okay. I won't use any anesthetics on him. But he and you will be solely responsible for the amount of pain he will be in. He may even lose consciousness because of it.”

Aomine suddenly pales at the words. “He can't!”

It’s true that he doesn’t know what would happen should Kagami lose consciousness, but the redhead had looked so fucking terrified at the idea, and Aomine had made a promise. Call him anything you want, lazy, egotistical, inconsiderate, a jerk or a moron, but Aomine never broke his promises.

Midorima shakes his head. “You know I can't do anything about that.”

Aomine gulps and drags a hand over the weary lines on his face. God, he feels like if he were to drop into that leather couch right now, he wouldn’t be able to wake up for weeks.

How did Kagami go without sleep for six fucking days?

“Okay. Just do your thing. I'm sure he’ll be strong enough to handle it.”

And it’s cruelly ironic how the thought, while ringing true, isn’t comforting to him in the slightest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wonder why Aomine forgot to mention one particular GoM character...
> 
> i'm taking some liberties with the characters' backgrounds and what happened in Teiko, hope you don't mind. 
> 
> Please be warned that this fic will get much darker before it could get to happier parts. (I promise you a happy ending as a compensation :)
> 
> if you think this fic needs more warning, pls let me know, i'm quite terrible at figuring it out.


	7. Chapter 7

**Warning:** extreme angst, prepare tissues, maybe?

 

The operation doesn’t take long in its technical sense - a little over half an hour, Midorima may not be a certified doctor yet, but he sure as hell is efficient - but it feels like ages, long hours of anxiety, anticipation and dread, with Aomine pacing around and feeling uncharacteristically claustrophobic, like a large animal stuffed into a small cage on its way to the slaughterhouse. Sometimes he would stop at the closed door of the operating room and try to listen in, but he can’t hear much except for some here and there barely-audible whimpers that could as well be all in his head. He had expected screams, Midorima said Kagami would be in unmeasurable pain, why wouldn’t he scream? And the eerie silence eats away at him and creeps him out more than Kagami’s muffled shouts of _stop!_ had done back in the cabin; he is afraid that Kagami has passed out after all, and what would happen to him if he did?

Aomine has no fucking idea.

He practically pounces on Midorima the moment the doctor steps out of the room and closes the door gently behind him.

“Is he alright? Did he pass out?”

“No, he did not. There’s something seriously wrong with him, though,” the green-haired doctor furrows his brows in deep thought. “With the way he was clinging to consciousness. It was almost...inhuman.”

“He didn’t even scream,” Aomine says under his breath, extremely unsettled.

Midorima gives him a sideways look over his glasses. “Oh, that was because he was biting into a piece of cloth.”

“Why?” He asks Kagami a few minutes later, when Midorima finally gives him the permission to go inside. “I wouldn’t have minded, or judged you or anything.”

He’s lying on his side, facing the door, left arm hooked up to an IV. His flaming red hair looks even more startling splayed across the starch white pillow, and the dark half circles under his eyes look more prominent and unforgiving on his pallid skin. Washed-out hospital blue is not Kagami’s color, Aomine immediately decides upon seeing the large, unremarkable gown on a strong body that he has mostly seen in designer, slim-fit clothes. Kagami looks so wrong, so fragile, almost cracked and teetering on broken, lying quietly on a bed that can hardly accommodate his long legs, bare under the gown that can only cover down to his knees.

 

“Not you. Him.”

“Him?”

Aomine sits down on a chair next to the bed, resisting the soul-consuming urge to interlace his fingers with Kagami’s, which are long and thick and slightly bent inward, as if the redhead had run out of energy midway through curling them into a proper fist.

“Didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

Aomine’s brows crinkle in confusion. “You’re talking about Midorima?”

Kagami doesn’t say anything to that, opting instead to stare with haunted, dead eyes at the point where the line has been inserted into his skin. They lapse into silence for a tense few minutes, the drip drop sound of the IV bag suddenly too loud and ominous in the quiet room.

Aomine struggles with what to say. Kagami doesn’t look good at all. He looks like a ghost that isn’t aware that others can see him now. He’s utterly motionless and quiet, his breath doesn’t wheeze, his eyes don’t blink. The silence is viscous and painful, sinking into Aomine’s ears like tar.

He clears his throat to ask the redhead the stupid question of if he’s alright, but Kagami lets out a deep sigh and looks up at him with those fucking dead eyes.

“This is all your fault, you know.”

“What is?” Aomine says through gritted teeth.

Kagami continues in a voice that has lost all of its intonations, “this pitiful state I’m in. That I haven’t slept for almost a week, and I won’t be able to do so anytime soon ‘cause no one’s gonna fuck me like this.”

 _I wasn’t the one who shoved a bottle up your ass!_ The words almost slip out of his mouth, crude and angry and hurtful, but he clamps down on them with a strength and consideration that he has never felt before Kagami.

“You’re such an ungrateful bastard, you know that?” He says weakly, not really in a mood to argue with someone who can’t even work enough inflection into his voice to make himself sound less like a programmed robot.

“Guess you bring out the worst in me.”

More of that deafening silence follows, filling up all the spaces between them with sharp jagged lines that would be really painful to cross.

 _What am I doing here,_ is too dangerous a question to be asking of himself now, so he lets all the conflicting thoughts in his head die down as he slumps in his chair and drags a hand through his hair and across his face. He’s exhausted to the extent that his eyes hurt, and his head is throbbing with the jumping pulse in his neck, and he wants nothing more than to shut his eyes and get some hours of sleep, but the idea leaves a rotten taste in his mouth when he turns his head to the side and finds those expressionless eyes staring unblinkingly at nothing in particular. Between the two of them, Kagami has more of a claim on sleeping and Aomine will not allow himself any shut-eye before that severely sleep-deprived fucker. It just doesn’t feel right.

He jolts in his seat at the cold touch of fingers that suddenly wrap around his wrist. “Ao...I’m falling asleep. I _can't_ fall asleep. Hurt me.”

“What?!” His voice rings an embarrassing shrill in his shock as he takes into Kagami’s pained expression and the beads of sweat sliding down the side of his face.

Kagami’s nails dig into his skin. “Hurt me. Come on. Do it. Give me pain. I need to stay awake.”

Aomine puts his hand over the redhead’s fingers to ease up the pressure. “What the fuck, Kagami. You can’t just ask me to hurt you! I like you, I can’t do that!”

Kagami doesn’t let go of his wrist. His hand is so cold, and the strength he has put into jabbing his nails into Aomine’s skin is so fucking desperate. “Ao...this is where you can actually be saving me. If I fall asleep, I’m done for. Please help me. Please.”

For a moment, Aomine thinks about calling Midorima. He’s the doctor here, shouldn’t he be in charge of making such decisions? But that is such a cowardly thing to do, to push the responsibility onto someone else, when Kagami’s blood red eyes are boring so desperately into his, pleading with him in a way that Aomine knows he hasn’t done with anybody else. He can’t let go of him now, while he’s dangling over the edge, clutching Aomine’s hand, trusting him with his life. Kagami needs him.

“What...what do I have to do?” His voice cracks under the onslaught of emotions he’s trying so hard to trample down.

Kagami heaves a relieved sigh and uncurls his fingers around Aomine’s wrist. There are red, crescent marks left on his skin where Kagami’s nails had viciously dug in. Aomine resists the urge to rub at the nail marks.

“Slap me in the face as soon as you see me closing my eyes.”

“Kagami. What the fuck is wrong with you.” He chokes on the words, and his question comes out flat in his utter bewilderment.

 _What have I gotten myself into_ , the panic must have shown on his face as Kagami winces when they lock eyes.

“I told you to leave. You didn’t listen.”

 _Fuck it._ “I’m not...I’m not quitting on you, okay? It’s just...I can’t bring myself to hurt you. You look like a fucking angel.”

A fallen one. Clipped wings and tragic. Cursed by the gods to live a long life of suffering and solitude among despicable men. Aomine’s thought process suddenly screeches to a halt. What the fuck is he doing? Waxing poetic at a time like this? Shit, he doesn’t even read poetry. What is it about Kagami and his goddamn suffering that has broken the dam on his suppressed emotions?

“Don’t worry. You won’t be hurting me. You’re saving me, remember?” He grabs Aomine’s hand again, but this time, the touch, even though still alarmingly cold, is more gentle, somewhat intimate with the calloused pads of the redhead’s fingers almost caressing his skin, and Aomine sucks in a shuddering breath. “Aomine. Save me!”

Has anyone, with a shred of a heart, ever been able to say no to that face?

And Aomine is already so weak for that tragically beautiful face that he doesn't need any more incentive to let the redhead bend him to his will.

He squeezes Kagami’s hand, and allows the coldness of his touch to seep into his own skin. “Okay.”

The smile that Kagami gives him is like a knife stabbing repeatedly into his gut, and Aomine grabs onto the other's hand with enough force to convey the extent of the pain Kagami's awful smile is causing him.

They stay like that for a few minutes, holding hands, holding breaths. Then Kagami’s eyes flutter close, and when they don’t open after three tense seconds, Aomine pulls his hand out of Kagami’s loosened grip and slaps the redhead in the face with it.

“Hey, Kagami. Don't fall asleep.”

The slap wasn’t that hard, yet the print of his hand sits red and high on Kagami’s right cheek, refusing to subside on the pallid skin. Aomine feels like dying.

Kagami’s eyes are open now, that’s at least something.

“Talk to me, Ao.”

Aomine is really bad at this ‘bedside therapy’ thing. He’s been told to be too self-centered and spoiled to know how to console others and just be _there_ for them. But Kagami is important, and he needs him, and Aomine wouldn’t know what to do with himself if the redhead didn’t survive the night.

“Okay, uh...remember that game we had a month ago...those final points. How did you make it? How did you know where to make that pass without even looking in that direction?”

Talking about basketball with Kagami on a hospital bed, fighting to stay awake to stay _alive_ , suddenly feels like recounting a fairy tale. But basketball is Aomine’s version of small talk, and he thinks it will be safe enough a topic for the redhead to take part in.

But Kagami doesn’t say anything for a while, teeth worrying his bottom lip and his hand, the one that had been clutching Aomine’s before the slap, fists into the bed sheet tangled beneath his body.

“He…,” the redhead starts in a faint voice, and Aomine has to lean forward to hear his next words. “He told me.”

“He? Who’s he?”

“The voice in my head.”

Kagami looks at the spot next to Aomine, and sure enough, the _demon_ is there.

“You have a voice in your head? Are you crazy or something?” Aomine means to tease, but the redhead scowls at him.

“No...I told you. I’m cursed.”

Suddenly, Aomine feels apprehensive. And he doesn’t like that Kagami’s gaze keeps returning to the empty space next to him instead of being pinned on him.

“So you’re saying that voice...is…”

“He’s the curse.”

“The curse is a _he_ ?” The notion takes him completely off-guard. Up until now, he had thought of Kagami’s curse as an abstract concept, something like bad luck, not an actual _being_ that goes with a masculine pronoun.

Kagami is still refusing to look at him, and Aomine is afraid to look to his side.

“Yes. And he’s here now.”

Aomine’s eyes widen in shock. Granted, he has not yet seen any evidence that would prove to him such a curse even exists, but the flat conviction in Kagami’s voice is really hard to disregard.

Next to the bluenette, the demon gives Kagami warning looks.

“How...how does he look like?” He asks to fill in the suffocating silence, but he isn’t sure if he really wants to know. Demons are usually depicted as these really scary creatures with horns on their heads, and jagged teeth and sadistic grins, and Aomine thinks Kagami’s demon must be even scarier still.

“Like a human,” and Aomine inwardly sighs in relief. “It’s adopted. For my benefit.” He says it bitterly, and glares at the demon who’s still standing next to Aomine in a threatening pose.

“Taiga,” the demon hisses his name in warning.

Undeterred, and with even more conviction now that he’s feeling rebellious, Kagami continues, “pinkish red hair. Mismatched eyes. Much shorter than you. Really pale. crazy smile.”

“Taiga,” the warning this time sounds even more foreboding.

Kagami doesn't listen.

“What’s his name, if he has any?”

Kagami gives a pause. The demon looks even scarier in the harsh white light of the halogen bulbs, his mismatched pupils looking less rounded and more snake-like.

“Don’t,” he warns again with a shake of his head, voice dangerously calm and dripping with promise of pain.

Kagami’s heart rate shoots up.

“Akashi,” he says at last, and takes his eyes off the demon to rest them on Aomine instead.

 

The blue-haired man is looking considerably faint, as if holding himself together by sheer willpower. Kagami feels like shit for wanting to keep the man around. All these months after the curse, he had to go through the horror and agony alone, he had to pick up the pieces on his own, thinking, more often than not, if it’s even worth it anymore to get back up only to be knocked down, and now there’s someone who _knows_ , and is stubborn enough, maybe even stupid enough, to stay with him and share the burden. Why? Because of goddamn _basketball_?

 

Kagami feels so weak before this mind-wrecking need to hold onto Aomine’s wrist and never let go.

 

“Akashi? Wow...okay...a Japanese name,” he sounds equal parts awed and disturbed. “What does he want from you?”

 

Akashi is looming over him now, pressing the sharp tip of a pair of scissors, as his only personal possession, into the delicate skin under his eye, and Kagami doesn’t know if the demon would actually gouge out his eye or if it’s just a sadistic show of dominance, but he doesn’t want to risk it, he has never seen the demon angry at _him_ , and his heart starts to contract painfully in his panic and he feels he’s about to pass out.

 

“Ao….hit me. Hit me hard. Now.”

The sheer panic in Kagami’s voice affects Aomine terribly, and the blue-haired man smacks his face so hard that it makes a sharp, horrible sound in the quiet room, and forces Kagami’s head to the side. The redhead’s lip is stained with blood where his teeth had accidentally sunk in upon the forceful impact, and the entire right side of his face is flaming red.

Aomine grabs Kagami’s head into his hands, and looks with a horrified expression at the damage he has inadvertently done to the face of the man he loves.

“Shit! I’m sorry, Kagami, I think I hit you too hard.”

“No...no that’s alright.” Kagami licks the blood away, and touches his tender cheek with a slight wince. “The pain keeps him away.”

He breathes deeply and looks around the room. Akashi is gone. For now.

“He wants...he wants my body.”

“What the fuck?”

Aomine’s startled reaction makes Kagami realize that his wording may have had a double entendre, so he rushes to explain, “if I fall asleep or lose consciousness, he’ll take over my body. I can’t let him do that. I’d rather die.”

“Shit, Kagami, this is so fucked up. What are you gonna do?”

“Apart from not falling asleep? Nothing much I can do.”

“But there must be something! Some way to break the curse.”

 

What is he doing, Kagami wonders, revealing so much about himself to someone he should have been avoiding to spare him the pain. What is it about Aomine that makes him want to be so selfish? That makes him believe that there may be hope, if he lets the blue-haired man get close and hold his hand, they could walk into the fire and come out of it unscathed. But this is all wishful thinking, isn’t it? There’s no way out of this hell, and Aomine can’t help him. Kagami would only drag him down with him. He should stop. He should push him away, lock himself up in a cage and not let anyone else catch the contagious virus in him.

But what is it about Aomine that makes it so difficult to be the better man and turn his back on the light to retreat to the darkness instead?

Is it how _he_ had felt, on the night he finally gave in and took Kagami to bed after years of pining and painful infatuation? Making him think that it was his charms, that it was _love_ , but it was actually desperation and sleep loss? Had he thought, as he pinned Kagami’s eager body to sweat-soaked sheets to kiss down his chest like a caring lover and pushed himself into him so slowly as if afraid that Kagami would break, that there must have been something about Kagami that he couldn’t just walk away from, that begged to be defiled and ruined, that made him want to be selfish and take the easy way out of his hell? Had he blamed Kagami for it, after the act was done, leaving him behind with a demon that wanted to possess his body? Had he felt relief, when he went to bed the next night, knowing he could safely close his eyes and go to sleep now, while his demon was keeping Kagami, the boy whom had been so naively and stupidly in _love_ with him, awake and terrorized and lonely and so utterly fucked-up?

 

Kagami sinks his teeth into his split lip, causing the scab to bleed again. The tangy taste of blood is comforting, taking his mind off painful memories. He has to remember though, he isn’t the man who took everything from him, and Aomine isn’t Kagami.

“I can…,” he starts after a moment of tense silence, “pass him on to someone else, through sex. But he kills them and comes right back to me the next day. I’m his favorite.”

He gives a short, humorless laugh at that. Aomine looks livid.

“Shit. So that’s why you keep sleeping around with assholes.”

“Yeah, and why I’m not gonna sleep with you.”

“Kagami...I...I want to help you. You don’t deserve this.”

“I don’t think anyone does.”

Kagami feels the soft pressure of Aomine’s large hand on his head, fingers sinking into the thick strands of his hair and carding through them. It’s such a foreign act of kindness and intimacy that Kagami nearly chokes up. When was the last time someone put their hands on him that didn’t hurt?

“Least of all you. You’re a fucking angel.”

 _Angel_. What does that even mean? A heavenly creature with huge, white fluffy wings? Or a man down on his knees, kicked in the guts for so long he can’t fucking breathe?

“That’s why he won’t leave me. Says I’m...pure or some bullshit.”

“Does he even sense the fucking irony in that? A _demon_ choosing a pure soul to possess?”

Akashi reappears in his line of vision, looking extremely displeased.

“Taiga, you need to make him leave.”

“No,” Kagami says in defiance, feeling strangely safe with Aomine’s fingers still stroking his hair. Aomine thinks he’s talking to him.

“Well, he must be a dumb demon, then. We’ll totally find a way to outsmart him, trust me.”

Kagami gives him an amused look; outsmarting _Akashi_? That’s such an ambitious goal, the demon is practically all-knowing. But the blue-haired man looks so confident and self-assured that Kagami can't stop the little smile that steals its way along the bloodied seams of his bruised lips.

“Aomine...thank you.”

Aomine gives him a wide grin, all straight white teeth and poised and hubristic, and something flutters in Kagami’s chest, like a butterfly coming back to life after years of having lied dormant, and he opens his mouth to let the butterfly out because suddenly there is no words left in the world that he could use to describe how he feels.

“Make him leave!”, “I’m here for you,” the two say at the same time.

Kagami only listens to one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was that for a reveal?  
> (in case it wasn't clear, Akashi has never been part of the GoM, so Aomine doesn't know anyone going by that name.)
> 
> It's our New Year holidays, and here i am making myself sad so i could write this lol. Hope you liked the chapter and that it was worth it.
> 
> Kagami is literally calling Aomine 'blue' (Ao) and i love it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback to how Kagami started sleeping around with assholes to get rid of his demon. (Trigger warning for rape/non-con elements)

**Warnings** (for the second part of the chapter, marked by three asterisks): rape/non-con; violence; suicidal thoughts; mentions of throwing up; slurs

 

He managed the first two nights well enough, and not just because he was already used to adrenaline-induced insomnia before an official game, but he was so scared out of his wits that he didn’t dare blink, let alone think about going to sleep with a fucking _demon_ attached at his hip, which constantly watched his every move, even when he needed to take a shower or a leak.

He was  _reassured_ that the demon wouldn’t kill him; it would most likely not hurt him either, because all it cared about was to possess Kagami’s body so it could do whatever the fuck it wanted on this plane of existence that clearly didn’t belong to it. Without a human body, the demon had very limited control and influence over its surroundings. It was only visible and tangible to the person it was attached to, and that was a great setback for a being that was supposedly omnipotent, with enough power in its possession to flip the entire planet Earth on its head. If that was what it wanted. Kagami had no idea what it wanted, and he had no intention of engaging the demon in a conversation about its nefarious plans.

He just wanted it gone, and he wanted to sleep, and for his life to be back to normal, and his heart to get over that fucking betrayal. Funny, that on most days, when his guards were down and he was only a breath away from breaking into pitiful, ugly sobs, the thing that hurt him the most was not the terror and the loneliness and sleep loss caused by a demon of all things, but the constant reminder that his body, his stupid virgin body, was used by the man he _loved_ to get rid of a fucking curse. It made him feel so small in his tall and broad frame, so pathetic against his otherwise prideful nature, so used and repulsive that sleep deprivation became the least of his worries for a time.

But that was all before the fifth day, when he realized he wasn’t going to die over a broken heart, but he might very well do over lack of sleep. His google searches about sleep deprivation cautioned him not to go without sleep for more than 11 days. He already had all the severe symptoms; forgetfulness, anxiety, tremors, hallucinations. His performance in school was terribly affected as his attention span had been shot to hell; he could barely string a sentence together, and his stamina on the basketball court was dropping in an alarming rate. One of the hardest decisions that he had to take, however, was to change his diet for the first month before he gave up on the horrible regimen altogether. Apparently, fatty proteins made him sleepier, so he had to lay off cheeseburger and start eating vegetables, nuts, tofu, and drink a lot of water. He left energy drinks for emergency cases only, because he wasn’t sure how his body would take to the crash afterwards. So on the fifth day, he fucked up on his geometry test, was fouled out in a match against their biggest rival team, and was nearly run over by a bus while crossing the street.

 

He needed to sleep.

 

 _He_ told him the only way to get rid of the demon for at least a night was to have sex, and it wouldn’t be too difficult a task with Kagami’s looks. Just have your genitals come into contact with one another, and the curse would transfer like some fatal STD. Basically, to whore yourself out, and get some unassuming, undeserving poor bastard killed. Kagami didn’t like the sound of it. He wasn’t that kind of person. For one, he didn’t have casual sex. He waited five fucking years to finally sleep with the man he loved, never mind where that got him. He also didn’t want to get someone else in trouble to get rid of his own problem. He was _too_ kind, he was often told. Now he understood why it never sounded like a compliment when they said it. Being too kind was his greatest weakness, his biggest flaw. But it wasn’t like he could do anything about it now.

Except, he  _had_ to do something now, if he didn’t want to pass out from exhaustion and have a demon take over his body and parade around in his skin, hurting people he cared about or didn’t know while pretending to be him.

He decided to go to a club that night. Find someone to sleep with. Then, either the demon would find the new host _worthy_ and stick with him, leaving Kagami the fuck alone, or it would kill the host and return to him in the morning, but at least give Kagami a few hours of sleep.

That was the plan. Of course, it didn’t go accordingly. Kagami, despite the fatigue and an intense headache and the terror of what would happen to him if he inadvertently fell asleep, couldn’t bring himself to pass the curse to anyone else. They were here to dance, to drink, to immerse themselves in blissful oblivion. They hadn’t done anything to him to deserve that kind of fate. Some approached him with obvious intents, friendly gestures and flirtatious smiles, and it horrified him how _easy_ it was to just sleep with random strangers in a club as he turned them all down one by one. Instead, he got drunk. What a stupid thing to do, getting inebriated on top of at least 40 hours of sleep loss. But that was what Kagami was; stupid. Stupid for having fallen in love with someone unattainable and then having waited years for it to finally be legal, and then, giving his virgin body to a man that didn’t love him, that didn’t really care for him, that just wanted to use him and leave him in the morning with a fucking curse of all things.

He left the club piss drunk, and in his miserable stupor, somehow ended up at the line for a high end gay bar. He still had a chance to get some sleep tonight, and perhaps, his inebriated state would blunt the cutting edge of his moral sense this time.

He was holding up the line, the man behind him grunting in impatience, and the bouncer, after deeming his appearance adequate, motioned with his head to go inside.

“Go on, then.”

“S-sorry,” he stuttered and stepped out of the line, feeling his cheeks burn hot in embarrassment at the bouncer’s raised brow, most likely questioning his sudden change of heart.  

Trying to escape from those judgmental eyes, Kagami swiftly turned on his heels and began taking long, fast strides in a random direction, feeling humiliated and angry at himself for being such a coward.

Before he could turn the corner, a hand suddenly grabbed his arm, and he spun around in alarm, ready to throw a punch. The stranger immediately dropped his hand at seeing Kagami’s defensive stance, and gave him a friendly smile. He was young, around his age perhaps, a few inches shorter with a slender built, dark spiky hair, warm hazel eyes and a black stud earring. Kagami’s gut instincts told him to calm down. The young man seemed harmless enough.

“Sorry about the grabbing and startling you,” he said in an apologetic tone, the friendly smile still in place. “I was calling after you, but I guess, you didn’t hear me.”

Kagami didn’t know what the brunette wanted from him, so he kept his mouth shut.

“It’s your first time, right?”

Kagami wasn’t rude enough to ignore a direct question, but he was still confused about the man’s business with him. “Uhh…”

The brunette was giving off all sorts of warm and comforting vibes, and Kagami forced his tense shoulders to drop into a more relaxed posture.

“It’s okay. I know how scary it could be for first timers. Don’t worry though, I’ll help you. You’re really cute.”

So he thought it was Kagami’s first time at a gay bar, and that was why he bolted, because he was nervous and inexperienced, and probably fresh out of the closet. He wanted to help Kagami settle in the new environment; he thought Kagami was _cute_.

Kagami swallowed.

“That red hair. It’s so cool. The dye looks so natural, you gotta tell me where you got it done,” there was an awed tone in his slightly-accented voice, and he looked like he was restraining himself from reaching forward to touch Kagami’s hair.

“I didn’t dye it,” the words came out of his mouth unbidden. He had no idea why he said that. He must have been quite drunk. He had to get back home before his father realized he was not in his room.

“You mean that’s your natural hair color? Damn, and it’s two-toned, how even?”

The brunette looked completely awestruck at this finding, and it was a genuine kind of interest, innocent and flattering. Kagami knew he had to be blushing. People were rarely that sincere when they hit on him, as scarce an occasion as it actually was given his misleading, intimidating appearance. It was a strange feeling, how much he wanted to stay on this random street with this random stranger who looked at him as if he was worth something. It was a dangerous feeling.  

Something must have shown on Kagami’s face, maybe the blush was noticeable even in the dark, as the brunette finally felt bold enough to reach out a hand and grab Kagami’s elbow. He took Kagami a few steps to the side, under a street lamp, and Kagami, in his drunken haze engulfed by comforting vibes, simply allowed the manhandling like the total idiot he was.

“Dude, even your eyes are red! Don’t tell me they’re natural too?!”

“They are.” Kagami admitted in a soft tone, enjoying the attention far more than he normally would. It must have been the alcohol, and the sleep loss, and the other man’s comforting aura that had put Kagami’s instincts at rest. He felt like a pet animal, like a dog no less, with the way he craved a human’s appreciative attention and touch. If he had a tail, he wondered, would it be wagging behind him right now?

He was really, _really_ drunk _._

“Wow. Your looks are out of this world, man.” There was a breathless quality to his voice that had Kagami blushing even harder. He wasn’t used to receiving such nice compliments on his looks, and he didn’t know how to react to them. He liked it, though, and the feeling started to set off alarms.  

The brunette suddenly took out a pen from his back pocket and a bill out of his wallet and began scribbling something on it.

“Here, this is my number. Call me.”

He had written his name on it, too. Aydin. Kagami took the one dollar bill on autopilot. If he was a whore, was that how much he was worth? He dissolved into laughter at the thought, loud and dopey, unable to stop the inappropriate reaction in his current alcohol-induced loose mental state. The brunette, Aydin, gave him an amused look, slightly cautious, as if just realizing that the redhead may not have been right in the head after all. Kagami was an innocuous drunk. It didn’t show in his eyes or his walk or his talk. It affected his better judgment, made him do things that would be utterly reckless and stupid. But then again, those who knew him would say he didn’t even need alcohol as an excuse to be dumb. He could manage that all on his own.

He stopped laughing. His cheeks felt warm, and his eyes stung. Aydin was waiting for him to say something, but Kagami had been thrown into the pit of his inner turmoil, and was struggling to crawl his way back up.

Why was it so easy to sleep with someone you just met and knew absolutely nothing about? Kagami had pined after the man who gave him the curse for some five years, and he thought this was how it had to be, the laws of one-sided attraction and love. And he could just agree to sleep with the brunette right now on the spot. They could go to a motel or something, and Kagami would play a cheap whore and charge him one dollar a thrust, and it wasn’t like he was a virgin anymore so he knew about the pain and the discomfort and the shame and vulnerability of putting your butthole on display, and it would be just so easy to say yes and ruin a stranger’s life for good.

But Aydin’s eyes were this warm shade of hazel, and his face was so kind and sincere, and Kagami realized he could never do this to people like him, no matter how fucking easy it was. It was also the moment he realized he was totally and utterly _fucked_.

“No, I’m sorry,” he pushed the dollar back into the other man’s hand, unable to look him in the eyes. “I’m not...I’m not gonna call.”

“Oh, okay,” he sounded somewhat miserable and looked utterly dejected when Kagami finally managed to look up, and drunken giggles almost slipped through his lips again at the awful irony of the situation. This young man was looking at Kagami as if the redhead had been cruel in his flippant rejection of his genial interest, yet he had no idea that Kagami had just decided to spare his life.

“Just take care of yourself, alright?”

The concern was genuine enough, and if they had met years earlier, or even months, maybe Kagami would have taken Aydin’s hand in his and scribbled his own number on his palm; they could go on dates and Kagami would have asked him if he played basketball. Then, after a few dates and homemade meals, and sloppy kisses and not-so-accidental touches on street courts or in movie theaters, they would sleep together and none of them would give the other a curse that would ruin a life.

 _Take care of yourself?_ Kagami would if he just knew how.

 

*******

 

He should have called for a taxi. That was the wise thing to do. But Kagami was not in the habit of making wise decisions even on his good days. He turned the corner, walking past Aydin with his warm hazel eyes and his number on a one dollar bill, moving away from that gay bar and his chance to pass on his resident demon to an unassuming stranger that was only looking for a good time, signing his death warrant with every step that he took away from potential bed partners, and every night that he went without sleep.

He’d blame his drunken ass and sleep-deprived brain for how he ended up in a wrong neighborhood, walking with eyes to the ground through a back alley, but he was bitter and depressed and drowning in self-pity, so he called it _fate_ and surrounded himself to it.

A gun was pointing at his head, and Kagami was just so fucking tired that his survival instincts were practically dormant.

“Hey, weirdo. Give us all the money on you, or I’ll shoot.”

Kagami eyed the barrel of the gun in a trance. He had ever seen a gun before in movies. Despite the fact that he lived in the States, a far cry from Japan with its strict gun laws, he had been so... _sheltered_. He lived in a nice neighborhood. Upper middle-class, with law-abiding people with important and well-paying jobs for neighbors. And he never stayed out late and his circle of friends was limited to his basketball team. He had lived a nice life. He had had it easy. Until now. Maybe, he deserved the gun in his face as compensation for all those days he had been happy, with a full belly and a beautiful house and a decent father and good friends when there were people in the world who didn’t have a happy life. Maybe, if he had gone through hard times while growing up, this wouldn’t have happened to him now.

Fuck. It didn’t make sense. He _knew_ it didn’t, but he was drunk and feeling pathetic and the gun was mere inches from his face and wouldn’t that be nice? To have your brains blown out of your skull and stop worrying about sleep loss and demonic possession?

Yeah. It sounded so fucking nice.

“Go on, then. Shoot.”

The man holding the gun was in all black, with a black beanie covering his hair, his much smaller figure barely noticeable against the dark.

His thick brows furrowed at Kagami’s unexpected reaction.

“You think I won’t? Don’t gamble with your life, kid. Just give us the money, and we’ll let you go.”

He didn’t want to shoot. Why would they give the gun to the one who didn’t want to shoot?

Kagami was at least a head taller than the gunman. He noticed two other men standing a few steps behind him, both dressed in black. Three against one? Good. He wouldn’t stand a chance.

“I don’t have any money. You might as well just kill me and get it over and done with.”

He bluffed. He still had a lot of money left in his wallet after his earlier binge drinking at the club. But being uncooperative would still get him killed. Or at least, that was how he remembered to be the case in the movies.

The gunman turned his head to give a quick look at his companions standing behind him. His gun was still trained on Kagami’s skull.

“Look, we got a suicidal son of a bitch on our hands. Whaddya think we should do about him, guys?”

Kagami stepped closer. Leaning his head a bit down, letting the cold muzzle of the gun touch his forehead. He closed his eyes and breathed in deep, getting a faint waft of spent gunpowder and pungent body odor. This was too easy. What if it didn’t work? After all, he didn’t deserve anything easy.

“Pull the trigger. Come on, pull it.” Kagami taunted him. Maybe he even sounded pleading.

The man was stalling and Kagami was desperate.

“Just give us the fucking money, asshole!”

Kagami’s eyes snapped open at the frustrated outburst, and the sudden painful press of the gun into his forehead.

This reminded him of the time he used to play basketball with his _brother_. How he wouldn’t budge on Kagami’s pleas for ‘one more time, please! Tatsuya, just this once!’, and Kagami had to pull some tricks to get what he wanted.

Thinking about Tatsuya now made him feel ten types of stupid and one hundred shades of suicidal.

“Do it! Pull the trigger. Or are you a coward?”

“Just kill the dumb fucker. We get the money off his cold dead body.” One of the two men at the back said. Kagami felt a tug of victorious smirk at his lips. His trick still worked. He could have this.

The man with the gun pressed his lips into a thin line, looking uneasy, and his hands shook, but his grip was still firm as he stepped back, lowering the gun to Kagami’s chest, and pulled the trigger.

Kagami braced himself for the impact. For the sudden shooting pain in his chest and the end. But nothing came.

“Boss, the gun is jammed.”

“Try again,” it was the voice of the man who had spoken earlier. Gruff, impatient and dispassionate. Like he couldn’t wait to get done with this and make it home on time for his favorite TV show.

The distinctive click of a trigger being pulled filled the air again, but still nothing happened. The gun was cold, and Kagami was still breathing.

The man gave the gun a look of pure frustration. Now that he had gotten his courage back, he couldn’t wait to put a bullet into Kagami’s chest and be done with it.

“I swear the gun was working last night. I tested it on Dom, gave him a nice little hole in the leg.”

His gun was suddenly jerked out of his hold. It was the third man of the gang. He looked older, in his 40s, with an air of someone who always got his way and didn’t give a fuck about consequences. He pointed his newly-acquired gun at his partner’s leg and pulled the trigger. The gun fired this time, the crack sound of it so startlingly loud for just a split second, before everything went this heavy kind of quiet as Kagami’s hearing was impaired. The sounds came rushing back to him in the next second, the first man now with a bleeding hole in his leg howling on the ground as if his limb had been just cut off.

Pain. Kagami was so fucking sick and tired of it. But if pain this time would put an end to it all, he would bear it.

The gun was back on him again. The man pointing the barrel at him had a cruel smirk on his scarred lips, his washed-out blue eyes looking at Kagami like he was a pesky insect he was about to crush under his heels.

Kagami met his stare head on, his heart beating loud and heavy in anticipation. He would bear it. He always did. At this point, he was a prodigy at it.  

The man pulled the trigger, and Kagami sucked in a breath.

The gun didn’t fire.

“Huh. What the fuck’s going on here?” The man wondered as he turned the gun in his hand. The ‘boss’ finally stepped forward, nearly as tall as Kagami but lanky, and yanked the malfunctioning gun out of his partner’s hand.

Before Kagami knew what was happening, the butt of the gun was smashed against the side of his head. The blow was so hard, and sudden, that it almost snapped his neck and threw him to the ground. He just lied there on the cold asphalt for a few seconds, trying to get his breathing back, waiting out the ringing in his ears, and the pounding in his head. The side of his head felt hot and wet. And he felt so dizzy and nauseous. Would he die from this? The pain was drawn out, and a bullet in the chest would have been a more certain and faster way of going out, but if this was all that Kagami got, what he _deserved_ , then he would bear it.

Kagami’s teeth were clenched in pain, eyes screwed shut as his shallow breaths wheezed past his cracked lips. He felt the press of a hand on his shoulder. A delicate hand, but a firm touch. Somehow supportive. Mostly possessive. Still, a little bit threatening. Kagami knew that touch. He retched and threw up on the ground.

The demon which called itself Akashi. It was kneeling close to his fallen body, grasping his shoulder, hissing in fury. It couldn’t stand ‘damaged goods’. It wanted Kagami’s body and it needed it to be intact for when it took over. Kagami felt a smidgen of satisfaction at the demon’s wrath over the blow to his head, even though he hated pain and in any other situation, he would have seen the move coming toward his face and dodged it in time. He used to be good at dodging once upon a time. Now he was struck down and got a kick in the guts every time he tried to get back to his feet.

“See? The guy isn’t immune to the good ol’ trick of gun-butting. Let’s take turn beating him up.”

Vomit rose in Kagami’s throat at those words, and he let it out. He didn’t want to get beaten up. Broken bones meant more pain, and absence from his basketball practice, and him having to ask the demon to heal him so he could maintain his routine and prevent his father or anyone else from finding out how fucked up he was. He didn’t want to ask the demon for anything. He wanted it gone.

And there was only one way he could achieve that.

As the men approached him with their taunts and name-calling, Kagami pushed himself on his hands and knees, ignoring the spinning of his head and the taste of vomit in his mouth, and started pulling down his pants, exposing his ass to the cold air and those strangers’ eyes.

“What the fuck is he doing now?”

“I think he’s gonna take a dump.”

Kagami hang his head, spreading his legs wider, pushing his naked ass up in the air. There was no mistaking his position now.

“Shit, I think he wants us to fuck him.” An incredulous tone.

Kagami let out a soft chuckle. He had sunk so low, showing off his ass to these assholes, begging to be taken by the people who had just tried to kill him and run off with his money. What would his father think of him, his perfect, basketball genius son, if he saw him in this position now?

“Huh. A suicidal slut? I’m feeling very generous tonight. Let’s give the faggot what he wants.”

Kagami recognized that nasty, mocking voice as belonging to the ‘boss’. He took a deep breath, and braced himself for the sharp, shocking pain of dry penetration. The moment the man’s cock breached him with a deep thrust, Kagami howled and fell forward on the ground, almost hitting his still bleeding head on the asphalt.

He felt, more than he saw, the demon launching itself at the man like a beast suddenly released from its chains, the weight of its body knocking the man down, causing his erect cock to be yanked out of Kagami’s abused hole in a sudden, painful pull.

Kagami stifled a groan, and pulled up his pants, barely listening to the man’s howls of terror and pain as he was beaten to death by what appeared to any onlooker to be an invisible force, and his partners running for their lives in the opposite direction, as he limped his way out of the alley.

His head was bleeding and his vision was spotty and his ass hurt like hell, but at least he would get to sleep tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being patient and sticking with the story. I hope it's still holding your interest. We'll get back to aokaga in the next chapter.
> 
> i need to apologize to kagami for putting him through so much pain. That angel doesn't deserves any of this. What he deserves is a doting aomine, and i promise he'll get his happy ending.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s sometime after midnight when Midorima — slightly disheveled hair, rumpled shirt and eyes squinting behind his glasses — comes into the room with Kagami’s cell phone vibrating in his hand. Aomine finds it odd that the green-haired doctor doesn’t look his typical annoyed self for having been kept at the clinic for such long hours, or having to sleep on that old leather couch outside instead of his comfy bed at home, only to be then rudely shaken awake to the sound of a vibrating phone, and being forced to play personal assistant to a patient that has some sort of ties with Aomine (who, as Aomine is reminded on every opportunity, is among the top 3 on the doctor’s shitlist, with number one being that university president who rejected Midorima’s application form because of something that happened ages ago, and wasn’t even his fault to begin with).

And when Midorima gives Aomine a furtive glance, before handing the phone to the redhead, his eyes look oddly soft and understanding behind the rectangular spectacles. Aomine sits straighter in his chair, and raises an eyebrow, questioning Midorima’s strange expression, as Kagami flips open his phone — which is an obnoxious red the exact shade of his eyes with a chibi tiger strap that has no business of belonging to a 20-year-old, 190cm something man — and answers the call in a calm, and somewhat cheerful tone (“Hey, senpai!”), as if he is not sitting on a hospital bed wearing a hospital gown, with recently stitched-up rectal injuries. Aomine is conflicted between feeling impressed and utterly disturbed at the flawless show Kagami puts on.

 _Is it really a show, though?_ Aomine wonders as his gaze shifts from Midorima to the redhead _._ What if Kagami has already been used to this horrible lifestyle? What if injuries and spending the night in strange places are his _ordinary_? What if the pain Aomine feels at seeing Kagami like this has long ceased to make an impression on the redhead in the face of far worse calamities that Aomine has yet to uncover?

Awful thoughts. Ugh.

He returns his gaze to Midorima, who nods his head at Aomine’s troubled expression, and leaves the room without saying a word.

Huh. For a moment there, Midorima looked like he was giving Aomine his blessing, or at the very least his approval. Aomine snorts at the thought and looks back at Kagami, who has a soft smile on his worn-out face.

“It’s alright; I missed your call earlier, too, so, uh sorry about that … No, everything’s fine, sorry to have bothered you, it was already late and all … It’s okay now, I just needed a ride … Oh, no, no, it won’t be necessary anymore, thanks … Yeah, I’m…,” at this point, the redhead looks at Aomine, and the smile that had touched his eyes earlier is still there and now it looks like the smile is directed at him. Aomine’s heart flutters at the sight.

“I’m staying the night with a friend…”

A _friend_. Aomine likes the sound of that, even if it’s only said as a convenient excuse to ward off suspicion.

“You don’t know him; well, you do, but not personally … Stop being a worrywart, Kiyoshi, I said he’s a friend,” Kagami sighs in exasperation as he rubs his neck in that endearing way of his.

Kiyoshi. Wasn’t that the name of Keio’s captain?

“It’s...Aomine,” he says his name softly, in a tone that almost sounds shy, and the Nittaidai ace wants to reach out and ruffle that messy mop of crimson hair in _fondness_.

The sudden urge startles Aomine enough to completely tramp down on it. He’d turn into an utter _sap_ if he’s not careful.

“Yeah, the one and only,” Kagami confirms, almost mockingly, and glares at Aomine, as if he’s the one at fault here, for being who he is, instead of someone that Kagami’s captain would already know and trust with their team’s precious power forward. Aomine glares back in reflex.

“Listen, I gotta go. It’s really late and I need to sleep.” Aomine is amazed at the complete lack of bitterness in Kagami’s voice as he talks about something that he hasn’t been able to do for almost a week.

Damn. The angel apparently can lie, too. But probably only when doing so is for other people’s benefit.

“He’ll give me a ride back home in the morning, Kiyoshi, I said stop worrying … Uhh, I don’t think I can make it. I’m probably gonna sleep in. Will you cover for me? … Thanks, man, I owe you one … Yeah, love you, too. Good night.”

Kagami flips his phone shut and puts it away on the table next to the bed. The way he said _love you_ was so natural and easy it makes Aomine wonder about the nature of their relationship.

“This happens a lot?” He motions to the phone with one hand, careful not let any trace of misplaced jealousy slip into his tone, because that’s not what he’s getting at now.

Kagami gives him a little frown, “what, Kiyoshi calling to check up on me?”

“No,” the Keio’s captain was returning a call, which makes it easy to assume that it was him Kagami had tried to reach back at the cabin. “I meant, you needing a ride after...you know?” Unable to talk about the incident at the cabin, Aomine tries another question. “Does he know about your...condition?”

“No. You and Kuroko are the only ones who do,” Kagami sighs, as if he has been inconvenienced by this development. Aomine stops himself from admonishing the redhead for still clinging to such stupid notions. He can’t do this on his own, that idiot. Can’t he see that he needs help to battle his demon?

“This doesn’t happen a lot.” Kagami continues, noticing Aomine’s scowl and dark aura. “This was the second time I needed help to get back home.”

Aomine doesn’t even want to know what had happened the first time, and the thought of something like this happening again makes him nauseous. “You’re a fucking idiot. What if you get killed?”

“I won’t get killed, Ahomine.” He says in a dismissing tone, which kind of pisses Aomine off.

“How the fuck do you know?”

Kagami doesn’t answer immediately. He does that a lot around him, Aomine has noticed. Stalling. Thinking whether to say something or how to say it. His eyes shift toward the window, and Aomine doesn’t know if he’s just trying to look outside (which is pitch black; there’s not even a street lamp in this part of town), or that the demon is standing there.

“Akashi doesn’t let them,” he finally says, deciding to trust Aomine with yet another secret. “If I get killed, he’d lose his _perfect_ host, so he can’t let it happen.”

“Huh. Something like a twisted version of a guardian angel?” Aomine offers with a mocking smirk.

“Maybe a guardian demon?” Kagami gives a short, bitter laugh at that, and his eyes return to the other side of the bed, which Aomine is now certain, with anxiety twisting his insides, is where the demon, _Akashi,_ must be standing.

He still has a hard time wrapping his head around the concept that there’s a fucking demon here with them in the room. A demon that will possess Kagami’s body the moment the redhead is knocked out. Aomine throws a glare in the direction Kagami is facing. That fucking demonic shit.  

“Sometimes, when I’m hurt badly, and have a game coming up,” Kagami starts, this time unprompted, and Aomine counts that as a victory. The redhead is in a sharing mood, and Aomine has never been this invested in learning stuff about someone. Whether it’s because it’s Kagami, or the stuff he has to share is Silent Hill-level disturbing, Aomine has no idea. “I...uh, I ask him to heal me.”

“He can do that?” Aomine raises his eyebrows in surprise.

Kagami shrugs. “He can basically do anything to the human he’s attached to, and once he acquires a body of his own, he can do anything to anyone.”

Now doesn’t that sound downright fucking scary.

“So, why didn’t you ask him to heal you tonight?,” Aomine asks to distract himself from those scary thoughts. “Wouldn’t that have been...uh, more efficient?”

Kagami scratches his cheek in discomfort.

“I’d rather not ask him, if I can help it.”

He stalls again, waves of unease rolling off his weary face and tense shoulders. Aomine wonders if this is the first time Kagami is talking about this; if Aomine is the first and only one now in the know. The thought sends a thrilling pulse through him, in spite of the dire circumstances. He wouldn’t have been here if he didn’t have a thick skin and a penchant for challenge and bad decisions.

“Why not?” He prods Kagami into elaborating, and the redhead, much to his surprise, gives in easily with a sigh. As if he would only tell him this if Aomine had asked for it. Aomine has passed the rite of passage, so to speak.   

“I treat it as the last resort. The healing process is….it feels...it feels worse than rape. The way he reaches into my body like a physical force and touches my bones, cells and tissues…,” Kagami’s body shudders noticeably, and Aomine forces his mind not to picture the words the redhead is saying, to no avail. “I feel his presence inside, and it’s like he leaves something of himself behind, imprinting on me...probably changing my DNA, too. It’s...it’s the worst kind of violation, because once he changes something about my biology, it can’t be changed back.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” And with his mouth open, he fails to stifle a treacherous, jaw-splitting yawn that brings tears to his eyes.

Funny how his yawn didn’t spread to Kagami’s severely sleep-deprived brain, Aomine thinks distractedly. Maybe the redhead is too far gone for such simple activities as yawning.

“You should sleep,” Kagami says in a firm tone, split-eyebrows wrinkled over his tired eyes in a disapproving scowl. “You probably have classes tomorrow. ”

“Fuck classes. And I’m fine. I’m no stranger to insomnia myself.” Aomine says dismissively, but Kagami’s expression darkens at his offhand tone.

“God, I feel so awful for dragging you into this.”

“You did no such thing. I came willingly and I’m gonna stay.” Willingly wasn't the right word for it, though, was it? Kagami sure put up a hell of a fight to prevent Aomine from getting himself into this mess, and Aomine isn't one to let others boss him around.

Kagami tilts his head, sweaty strands of hair falling to the side, revealing that nasty bruise on his temple. Fuck, he can’t believe it has been only a few hours since he followed the redhead to that rapist’s cabin, and convinced him, with fake promises and bribery, to ride in his car to Midorima’s clinic. It all feels like weeks.

“Just because I beat you at one game?” His tone lacks inflection, his eyes are void of any expression. Aomine doesn’t like that look on the redhead’s face. It’s creepy, as if the demon has taken over.

“Kagami, you…,” Aomine struggles with the words; the truth choking him up. “Yeah. Because you beat me at one game.” He finally decides to go with what’s easier to say, even if it’s not true.

Kagami snorts. “You’re pretty intense, aren’t you.”

“Only in special cases.”

“So, I’m special?” He sounds amused to hide the thick layer of derision beneath his tone, which you would only hear from someone with really shitty self-esteem.

“Seriously?,” Aomine raises a brow at him, deciding to humor him for his pathetic efforts at coming across as detached. “You’re really fishing for compliments? One would think you’d already be sick and tired of them by now.”

That little smile of mock amusement slips off Kagami’s lips as the redhead shakes his head. “No, not really. I mean, this is actually the first time someone's been genuinely interested in me, all shitty package of demonic curse included.”

Aomine shrugs with a certain air of nonchalance that he has been sorely missing ever since he threw himself head first into Kagami’s situation. “Yeah, well it takes more than a measly parasite to scare me away.”

“He resents that.”

“What?”

“You calling him a parasite.”

“Does he hurt you for it?”

“No. He’s just sulking in the corner like a child.” His eyes settle on the corner of the room, that little mocking smile back on his face.

Aomine mimics his smile. “Good. Let him sulk. And I’m gonna call him whatever the hell I want. You hear that, asshole?,” he raises his voice and looks in the general direction of where Kagami is looking. “You’re nothing but a stupid, good-for-nothing parasite and I’m gonna kick your fucking ass.”

Kagami turns his head toward him, eyes slightly widened in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected Aomine’s outburst and righteous anger on his behalf. “You know. We should _never_ sleep together. He’ll tear you apart.”

In any other situation, being told that there was no prospect of fucking in the future of his pursuing relationship would have seriously pissed Aomine off and deterred him from making any more advances. But this isn't any other situation, and Kagami isn't a conquest. Not anymore, anyway.

Aomine snorts, even as his guts twist in apprehension. “As if he was going to play nice if I didn’t insult him.”

“Well, no, he wouldn’t.” Kagami says in a soft voice, and hangs his head, looking suddenly crestfallen and subdued.

The look unsettles Aomine to no end. He has known Kagami for only a handful of encounters, and on each one of them the redhead had looked fierce and imposing; even when he was pleading with him, or leaning heavily against the wall with blood running down his thighs, his eyes still had looked this fiery shade of red. Those eyes look so lifeless now, the red resembling dried, faded blood stains, and Aomine knows with confidence that this isn’t like Kagami at all.

“Kagami. Don’t worry about this, okay? I got you.”

His hand moves on its own accord toward the redhead’s bare arm, fingers settling heavily on Kagami’s cold skin. The redhead looks down at their point of contact, and gives him a sad smile.

“Why would you want to waste your time with me? We can’t have sex, you know.”

“Not everything is about sex.” Aomine grunts, surprising himself with his response.

“But you are...I mean, sex for you must be pretty important.”

“Why would you think that?” He asks defensively, not sure why he didn’t like the insinuation. After all, his sexual escapades with random older women at Ignite or elsewhere have never been kept a secret, and he’s not ashamed or particularly embarrassed about it.

Now though, there is Kagami, and Aomine hasn’t thought about having one-night stands ever since he met the redhead on the basketball court.

The said redhead looks abashed in the white light of the halogen bulbs above his head. “Well, you’re...very forward when asking to sleep with an almost stranger, and uhh...you have the face and body for it, so why would you abstain?”

There’s a pretty blush on Kagami’s face. Like this, he looks so different from the last few hours since the incident in the cabin. That panic, anger and desperation is gone. Replaced by bashfulness, resignation and composure. Kagami looks beautiful like this, despite his pallor and the dark bags under his bloodshot eyes. Alive, and touchable, and real. Aomine sucks in a breath, noticing Kagami’s eyes on him waiting for his response.

“That’s true enough,” he says after clearing his throat, belatedly realizing that Kagami had just said he found him attractive in that roundabout way of his. “But it just so happens that you’re more important to me than sex.”

Kagami looks genuinely surprised. “Why?”

Why? Aomine understands Kagami’s bafflement, because to some degree, he feels it too. Love at first sight is still something you encounter in the movies and the books only, with very few real-life applications. Never mind that Kagami’s case isn’t exactly welcoming of the concept. What kind of an idiot would feel this committed to a more or less stranger with a shitload of baggage of a demonic proportions?

An idiot called Aomine Daiki, apparently.

“Because you’re a Bakagami that beat me at basketball.”

“Just because of one game?” Kagami repeats his earlier question, a deep frown on his serious face.

It must be pretty important to him to know the real reason behind Aomine’s obsessive attachment, the Nittaidai ace thinks to himself. So he decides to go with the truth, or a very watered-down version of it, because this moment is decisive, and their blossoming _relationship_ is hanging on a thread.

“No,” he says in a firm tone, and watches as Kagami’s expression morphs into an anxious one in anticipation of Aomine’s response. “Just because of you. And I don't need any more reasons than that, so stop asking. There’s no grand cosmic plan at work here. It’s just you. Always, only you.”

Aomine’s voice cracks at the end, that was getting too close to revealing a truth he isn’t yet ready to talk about, and he clamps his mouth shut in a mixture of irritation and embarrassment. Now’s not the time to bring up that particular period of his life.

Kagami raises one of his quirky brows and gives him an amused look. “I would’ve never pegged you for a romantic, Ahomine.” And the nickname, uttered in that soft, tender tone, sounds more fond than insulting, and Aomine decides he likes it.

“Don’t get used to it, baka.”

This time Kagami’s smile is a lot less sad and a lot more hopeful, and Aomine counts it as another victory in his slowly progressing relationship with the basketball genius.

As Midorima sleeps on the couch outside, Aomine engages Kagami in a two truths and one lie game to keep the two of them awake until the sun rises and throws its lukewarm, pastel beams into the small, white-wash room. And Aomine comes to learn a lot of things about the redhead that he still doesn’t know or care to know about Tetsu, and the experience is thrilling and leaves him with a fuzzy kind of feeling that is so similar to how he is left feeling after coming out of the zone.

 

I’m scared of dogs; true. ( – I figured you can’t be all that perfect. – Shut up, of course I’m not perfect. Where did you even get that stupid idea? – You seriously don't want me to start on that can of butterflies.)

 

I can make any dish just by tasting it; true. (– Seriously, you cook? Okay, I take that back. You’re still very much perfect. – What’s your favorite food? – Teriyaki burger. Why? – Awesome. I know a wicked recipe for that. – Are you saying what I think you’re saying? You’re gonna cook for me? – Sure, it's no big deal. – Kagami, you fucking utter angel! – Hey! Get out of my face, you freak!)

 

I have a younger sister (– Is she as hot as you? – Shut up, you perv! – Whoa, easy there, tiger. No need to get jealous. You own me body and soul. – God, you’re fucking embarrassing. – And you’re fucking cute when you blush, so it’s worth it.

And he’s hit in the face with a pillow for his trouble. Aomine takes it in good grace because Kagami is injured and he looks fucking adorable all embarrassed on his behalf.

– So was that true? – No. I’m an only child. – Well, that's a waste. With genes like yours. – Shut up. Like I’d ever let you two meet if I had a sister.)

 

I learned basketball from a WNBA player (– Was _she_ as hot as you? – Get your mind out of the gutter, Ahomine! I’m not letting Alex anywhere near you!

Well, at least that was true.)

 

I won gold in an international surfing tournament when I was 17 (– No way that’s true. – Why not? Didn’t you say I’m perfect? – Well, even perfection has its limits. – Not when it comes to me. – Shit, now you’re starting to sound like me. Is this a distraction tactic? – I donno. Are you distracted from discovering the truth? – I am, but I’d say that has more to do with your face than anything else. – What does that mean? – God, you’re dense. You act like no one’s ever flirted with you. – Was that flirting? It sucked. – Shut up! I’m the smoothest flirt in the whole Tokyo, I let you know. – Believe it when I see it. – Cheeky bastard.

Kagami laughs, pure, genuine and and terribly infectious, and Aomine decides he fucking loves the sound of it.

– By the way, it was true. – I believe it when I see it. – I have the medal back at home. – Are you inviting me to your place? – You’re such an _aho_. I already did when I told you I’m gonna make you your favorite food. Where did you think I was gonna cook it? On the street? – Damn. Let’s do it today. I’m taking you back to your place when it’s bright enough outside and you’re gonna show me your medal and make me lunch and play the perfect housewife I know you are. – Shut up! Do you want to die?!)

 _I am in love with you_ . _I won’t ever give up on you. You’re my soulmate, and I’m gonna fight your demons with you._

True, true, all true.

 

*******

 

Kagami’s place is nothing at all like how Aomine had imagined it to be (except that it’s western; Aomine had expected that from a returnee.) For one, it’s huge. Definitely too much space for just one person. What does he even do with that spare bedroom? The house is also impeccably clean and organized, to the point it hurts Aomine’s eyes just by looking at all the shiny, sparkling spots. It also looks strangely empty. Bereft of much personal belongings or even ordinary furniture, thus contributing to the overall ridiculousness of the size of the place. There is just the bare minimums. A huge, comfy couch in front of a 90 inch LED TV, a PlayStation and some games, a bookcase with a few books inside (not much of a reader, huh?), a low table and a carpet are the only things in the spacious living room.   

The place doesn’t look exactly lived-in. Then again, given Kagami’s condition and his habit of ending up in strangers’ places more often than not, maybe that’s true more in a literal sense than just a figurative one.

At least, the kitchen is impressive, to say the least.

“Remember I told you to leave me alone after this? Well, you don’t have to anymore.” Kagami says in a carefully measured tone, his expression hidden from Aomine with his back to him as he fusses over the oven.

Aomine towels his dripping hair as he steps into the kitchen. The quick shower has done wonders for his sore muscles, as well as his sour mood.

He eyes Kagami’s back with interest. “Really? What changed your mind?”

Kagami turns to face him, a spatula in one hand, and a pale blue apron with the face of a cartoon panda on it wrapped about his tall, muscular frame. He looks....disturbingly cute like that, and Aomine feels his cheeks warm up at the thought. “He doesn’t like you. Your presence around me riles him up. I...I like it.”

Kagami turns back to the oven, returning his attention to the sizzling meat in the pan.

Aomine suddenly feels ridiculously happy about that. Kagami didn't say that he likes him. He only said that he likes that the demon doesn't like Aomine. But, at this point, beggars can't be choosers, and Aomine has always loved a challenge.

“I’ll be here as long as you want me here.” Aomine says softly into Kagami’s ear as his arms circle the redhead’s shapely waist.

Kagami twists his head around to give him a suspicious glare. “Why did I sense something very dishonest about that claim?”

Aomine takes a whiff of Kagami’s neck, which smells of a warm and sandalwood-kind of scent courtesy of the shower he took earlier, and the amazing aroma of spices and cooked meat makes his mouth water.

Hmm. He could totally get used to this.

“Huh. You caught me,” Aomine says in a lazy tone, nose still sniffing Kagami’s neck and mouth brushing his skin. He’s pleasantly surprised that the redhead is not pushing him off in irritation or embarrassment. “I won't go away even if you don’t want me around.”

“Dumbass,” Kagami says softly, in English, with a smile that Aomine senses from the gentle cadence of his voice, and Aomine sighs in contentment, his warm breath tickling Kagami’s skin.

Nothing has changed about Kagami’s condition, and the redhead is still severely sleep-deprived, and Aomine needs to figure out a safer way for him to pass on his demon without getting sexually assaulted, but for now, he has Kagami in his arms, who looks happy and comfortable in his pale blue apron making Aomine his favorite food, and for the time being, everything feels so nice and peaceful that Aomine thinks, no matter what happens from now on, it’s worth it. Kagami is worth it. And Aomine will not give up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some fluffy aokaga moments for you guys :D thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

**Warning:** Akashi being a creep

 

He is just lazing around on Kagami’s couch after that heavenly meal and getting an eyeful of the redhead’s rather impressive medal collection (turns out Kagami is a sports freak; he even has a gold medal in some swimming competition, the fucker), stuffing his mouth with homemade cheese-flavored popcorn as they watch Kagami’s favorite TV show with British gangsters and this dude with the funny haircut and the cap, when his phone starts ringing that shrill, highly annoying ringtone that could only mean one person on the line.

Aomine takes his phone out of the pocket of his jeans with a grunt, and his ears are assaulted by an ear-splitting voice as soon as he flips the phone open.  

“Dai-chan! I can’t believe you skipped Mr. Yamada’s class again! Didn’t you promise him last week that you wouldn’t? He’s gonna kick you out of his class this time!”

Aomine winces and holds the phone slightly away from his ear, noticing Kagami giving him a questioning look. Satsuki’s voice is loud enough that the redhead can probably hear it, too, sitting on the far end of the couch.

“Calm down, Satsuki. Yamada doesn’t have the guts to do that. The headmaster will have his head if he ruins my basketball career,” Aomine says in a calm, detached tone, in an attempt to placate the furious pink-haired girl.  

“You don’t know that! And what excuse do you have this time for skipping? You didn’t show up to any of your classes today, I checked!”

Aomine goes through a number of plausible excuses, all sounding lame and overused, until he settles with the one that hits closer to the truth. “I had a sleepover.”

“What? You’re not five, anymore, Dai-chan.”

 _You say that and yet you call me Dai-chan_. “Whatever.”

“No, you don’t get to blow me off this time. Where are you? At Wakamatsu’s?”

“What the fuck, Satsuki? Why the fuck would I willingly stay over at that loser’s place?”

“Well, he didn’t show up, either, so I thought…”

The way Satsuki’s head works sometimes, Aomine has a suspicion she does it purposefully to rile him up.

“Yeah, in his wildest dreams only.” Aomine says mockingly. Honestly, if he had to choose between staying the night with that loud, white-blond idiot or next to a beehive, he would...well, he would just choose Kagami over and over and over again.

Satsuki gives a little sigh of impatience. “Anyway, don’t try to distract me, Dai-chan. Where are you?”

Aomine turns his head to look at Kagami’s profile. The redhead’s eyes are glued to the TV screen, mouth munching on popcorn, seemingly engrossed in the action currently going on in the show. Aomine knows he’s been listening to their conversation, though. Probably to _both_ sides of it, given how loud Satsuki can be.

“I’m at Kagami’s.”

As expected, the redhead whips his head toward him, giving him a nice view of his surprised, wide-eyed expression.

“Kagami? Who’s Ka - wait! You mean, Kagami Taiga, Keio’s ace?”

“The one and only,” Aomine says with a smirk, remembering Kagami’s earlier talk with his captain where a similar conversation had probably taken place. Kagami sends him a warm smile, crumbs sticking to his mouth and everything, and Aomine’s heart swells.

“Okay, what? Since when you hang out with Keio’s ace?”

“We bumped into each other at Tetsu’s pub, and he invited me to his place.” Not exactly lies, although the circumstances that led to him ending up at Kagami’s place are remarkably different from what Satsuki is probably imagining them to be.  

“Are you two -”

Aomine interjects in a somewhat insolent, somewhat cheerful tone, “Fucking? Yup.”

At the other end of the couch, Kagami chokes on his mouthful of popcorn.

“O-kay, I need to reassess everything,” Satsuki says in a calculating tone, Aomine can practically hear the gears turning in her head. “In the meantime, get your ass home in 30 minutes. We need to talk about this.”

Aomine gives another wince. “Do we really?”

“You’re sleeping with the ace of our rival team, which in case you’ve forgotten, robbed us of the championship this year! Of course we need to talk about it.”

 _Sleeping with Kagami? If only just._ “Okay, start on your calming exercises while I’m on my way.” Aomine resigns himself to his fate as he pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

“Don’t be late!” Satsuki yells before the line goes dead.

Aomine shoves the phone back into his pocket. Kagami by now has all but abandoned the pretense of being interested in what’s happening on the TV screen.

“What was that all about?”

Aomine heaves a long-suffering sigh and runs a hand through his short hair. “Satsuki. She’s a childhood friend _and_ literally the girl next door. Also the manager of our basketball team, which entitles her to nag at me all the time.”

“You told her we’re fucking.” Kagami’s eyes are accusatory, with those dark red, split eyebrows furrowed over them, but his voice came out flat and clinical.

Aomine scratches the back of his head in lieu of an apology. “Well, yeah, thought it would throw her off my case. Apparently, it only made her more curious.”

Kagami’s neutral expression suddenly hardens. “Don’t tell her about my condition.”

“I won’t, baka. You think I’d want people to think I’ve gone batshit crazy, talking about curses and shit?”

“Well, no, but….you believed me.”

“You have a way of convincing me.” Aomine says with honesty.

Kagami looks both sheepish and flustered, eyes cast downward at his clenched hands resting on his knees. “Aomine...uhh...I know this relationship thing means different to you than it does to me, but...uh, thank you.”

Aomine is about to ask what their ‘relationship thing’ means to Kagami, but he needs to get going and now is not the time. Plus, he doesn’t think he would like the answer anyway; something along the lines of ‘ _you’re here because you like me; but I want you here because I’m scared.’_ or, ‘ _because you’re fucking stubborn and I can’t make you leave.’_ Honestly, the last time Aomine had felt this humbled was...well,  _never_. 

“Don’t thank me. I’m not doing you a favor. This is for me.”

Maybe a little harsh and not entirely true. But he figured Kagami is one of those people who would be more upset if they thought they were being pitied than used. There is also the fact that he has started to feel very _off-centered_ around Kagami. He doesn't feel threatened - Kagami isn't trying to change him; well, not consciously anyway - but he feels slightly alienated in his own skin. And it's not necessarily a bad thing - suddenly finding himself caring so much for someone he's willing to basically do  _anything_ for their happiness - he just doesn't quite know how to deal with it.

“Yeah, okay.” Kagami says amenably and doesn’t argue, which Aomine doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Kagami puts the bowl of popcorn on the low table in front of them and dusts the crumbs off his clothes and wipes at his mouth as he gets to his feet and turns to Aomine. “You should go. I’ll be fine.”

Aomine stands up as well, allowing Kagami to walk him to the door. “I’ll be back in a few hours, so don’t go having sex with another rapist while I’m away.”

“You really have a way with words, aho,” Kagami says dryly.

Aomine gives him a roguish smile. “It’s part of my charms I’ve been told.”

Kagami answers Aomine’s smile with a little smirk of his own. “Lies.”

“What?” Aomine feigns an offended tone. “I’m plenty charming.”

“No comment.” Kagami shrugs.

They lapse into silence, standing in the doorway in awkward postures, neither seems to be ready to let the other go yet.

Aomine clears his throat. “So, uh...I should get going. Don’t do anything stupid before I get here, okay?”

Kagami’s expression darkens. “My whole life is stupid.”

No. Aomine can’t leave the redhead in such a bitter, nihilistic mood, because who knew what the idiot would do when left to his own devices? Before he can think about what he’s doing, his arms have shot forward, hands gripping tightly around Kagami’s ridiculously broad shoulders. “Now, now, hold that thought. I’ll be back soon and we’ll talk about it, okay?”

Aomine Daiki, the psychotherapist. Now doesn’t that sound fucking disturbing.  

To his relief, though, Kagami nods his head with a solemn “Okay.”

Satisfied with the answer, Aomine turns around to walk toward the elevator, only to be stopped by Kagami’s urgent shout, “Aomine, wait!”

Kagami runs back inside, and returns a few minutes later with a rather huge lunchbox in his hands.

“Here, take this with you in case you get hungry later.”

Kagami looks nonchalant and not the slightest embarrassed as he gives the box full of teriyaki burgers to Aomine, making the blue-haired man think that this is probably something he does all the time, giving the leftovers away to anyone who’s been invited to taste his amazing meals; but Aomine is nonetheless left speechless by such a kind, considerate and _domestic_ act, feeling his insides bubble up with so much love he feels like bursting.

“Kagami. Let’s get married.” He sounds embarrassingly breathless, but he realizes he is too far gone to care.

Kagami looks startled at his sudden proclamation. “What the hell, aho?”

“You’re so painfully husband material I just want us to get married asap.” And he’s not even teasing, fuck.

What is this? This ridiculously enormous effect Kagami’s mere presence has on him? He feels drunk, mouth opening on its own volition and disgustingly sweet words that he wouldn't have been caught dead even  _thinking_ about, pouring out without his consent.

He would have been alarmed, if it were anyone else. Putting himself at the mercy of so many unrequited emotions. One-sided love is such a pain in the ass, it fucks up with you so much that at some point you wouldn't be able to recognize yourself anymore. But Kagami is an oblivious angel, without an ounce of manipulative blood in his veins. Aomine is revealing so many of his weaknesses to him, practically on his knees for Kagami to deal the fatal blow if he wishes so, but the redhead, Aomine is sure, has no intention to ever use them against him.

Kagami looks decidedly flushed in the soft natural light flooding the hallway. “You’re gonna make me combust with all this secondhand embarrassment!”

And suddenly Aomine is struck with a revelation. “I’m totally moving in with you.”

“What?! No way!”

“Too bad I’ve already decided. I’ll bring my stuff over in the evening.” Aomine says with a shit-eating grin, enjoying both the prospect of living with Kagami and the redhead’s angry face.

“No, wait damnit! Don’t you fucking dare, aho! I’m not babysitting your lazy ass! I’ll throw your stuff out the window!”

“See ya!” Aomine shouts from down the hallway and waves his hand, completely ignoring the redhead’s threats, before jumping into the elevator.

Kagami stands in the hallway for a few seconds, bare feet tingling uncomfortably on the cold stone, before he heaves a deep sigh and goes back inside. That’s one stubborn son of a bitch Kagami’s own stubbornness can’t win against.

Without Aomine, the house suddenly feels stiflingly quiet and unbearably empty. And Kagami is left alone with his resident demon.  

“You will regret this, Taiga.” Akashi says in a cold, aloof tone. If he meant it as a threat, Kagami is so done with life right now to show a proper reaction to it.

“Just one more fly to the shit pile then.” He says in the same aloof tone, as he drops heavily into a chair.

The moment his ass comes into contact with the hard wooden seat, pain shoots up his spine, making his breath hitch and tears pool in the corner of his eyes.

“Fuck.” The curse word slips unbidden through his lips. He wonders if he should be concerned about how his immediate reaction to pain is to think, _I can’t have sex like this._

“You should have let me handle it. It wouldn’t have even hurt.”

How he hates sharing thoughts with that bastard, among everything else that has something to do with him.

“It’s funny how you’re purposefully ignoring the fact that this is all your fault to begin with,” Kagami says with a bitter tone.

Normally, he would have ignored Akashi -- nothing infuriates the demon more than being ignored -- but talking to him seems easier now after Aomine. Somehow, he doesn’t feel all that alone anymore. And if Akashi was being particularly nasty, Kagami could whine about it to Aomine and enjoy listening to the other man bad-mouthing the demon in that obnoxious, yet still kind of naive, way of his.

“It is not my fault you get assaulted every week. In fact, I keep advising you against it, but you do it anyway.”

 _That little shit. He is totally messing with me._ “Huh. And I wonder why that is.”

“I can still help you. Make the pain go away.” Is this what they call 'Satan's temptations'? And if Kagami yields to them, will his soul be condemned to hell? He chuckles humorlessly at the absurd thought, and abruptly stops the moment he catches Akashi's amused expression. 

His life is a fucking tragicomedy, and he's the alcoholic clown that, abandoned by his audience, laughs at his own lame acts. 

“After all that I went through just to get my anus stitched up? Makes all of it redundant, doesn’t it.” The pain of it all, _fuck_ , even thinking about it now makes his jaw hurt, but mostly what Aomine did for him, wasting his owed favors on him, sacrificing his sleep and skipping classes just to keep Kagami's company. If he said yes, would he be betraying Aomine? And he did promise him not to do anything  _stupid_ while he was away. Was it more stupid to refuse Akashi's offer, or accept it? At this point, Kagami can't tell up from down, let alone make any other more complicated distinctions.

“It is your choice.”

 _Choice._ “Yeah, right.”

Kagami shifts his weight on the chair, each time the pain is as unbearable as the last. Having sex like this, especially given how brutal it usually turns out to be, would tear up the stitches and he would be back to square one. Honestly one time was enough. He isn’t going to put himself through that kind of pain ever again, no matter how good Midorima was at his job.  

A few minutes pass, and the throbbing pain is a constant reminder of how utterly fucked he is. He isn't really in a place to be picky about his _choices,_ is he? With a heavy sigh, he finally concedes to the temptation. If there is a hell, he's already living it.

“Okay.” He says in small voice and pushes away from the table, getting to his feet and walking toward the wall on trembling legs.

In a flash, Akashi appears right in front of him, invading his personal space. Kagami wills his heart to slow down as cold beads of sweat run down his nape, dampening the collar of his black t-shirt.

Akashi gives him a smile that looks predatory and smug with those crazy, mismatched eyes of his, and reaches his hand between Kagami’s legs with such assurance and familiarity as if he already owns his body.

“Can I heal you, Taiga?” The sick tone of accomplishment in that slick voice turns Kagami’s stomach.

He gives a short nod as he tries to dissociate from his surroundings. He thinks about basketball, the feel of hard studded rubber under his touch, the taste of sweat and victory on his tongue, the crowd's cheers roaring in his ears. He thinks about sinking slowly into water, the light on the surface dimming and bubbles leaving his mouth and everything is so peaceful and quiet, as if he's reaching the deeper layers of the Zone. 

“Say it.” Akashi demands authoritatively, the hard edges of his voice breaking through Kagami's meditation, pulling him out of the depths and throwing him forcefully on the ground. The familiar echo of the analogy sends a shiver down his spine. 

 _Is this some fetish thing?_ Kagami thinks almost dazedly before hissing out a yes. He isn't really in the mood to argue, and doesn't have the willpower to dissociate again. He just wants to be done with the whole thing already.

Briefly, he muses about how he’s taken to spreading his legs for _any_ one, demons included, before he slumps against the wall, holding his breath and screwing his eyes shut; not that it makes any difference. When Akashi reaches inside his body, Kagami can see him with his mind’s eyes, feel him to the brim like water pouring through his mouth and eyes into his skull. It’s suffocating, nothing at all like the serenity of sinking into the Zone. It’s fucking terrifying, and he feels on the cusp of a stifled scream, as if he's dreaming.

When Kagami finally exhales, his breath comes out wheezing, waves of panic lapping at the edge of his mind like he’s flailing his arms in the water as he's trying not to drown.

Akashi’s finger slips without resistance into his hole through the fabric of his pants. It doesn’t exactly hurt like normal pain would. The intrusion is not physical, and his anal canal has not really given way to accommodate the length of Akashi’s finger, but when the touch starts healing up his damaged tissues, it feels like his body is folding onto itself, muscles pulling in and away at the same time, skin stretched taut over his bones as if about to snap, he feels like he’s turning inside out.

It’s over in a few seconds, but when Akashi withdraws his hand and steps back, Kagami’s back slides down the wall and he falls in an exhausted heap on the floor, the urge to vomit boiling up in his throat. On the plus side, he reminds himself to avert a major crack-up, it no longer hurts to be sitting on his ass.

He’s so pitiful he feels like laughing. Good thing Aomine isn't here to see him like this. But then again, maybe he should have. It would make him go away. It would kill the obsession. It would keep him safe.

Who was he kidding? He has never wanted something so terribly that his heart aches. He wants Aomine to stay.

 

*******

 

True to his word, Aomine returns in the evening with a huge navy blue luggage trailing behind him.

Kagami isn’t sure if he should be annoyed by the man’s audacity for inviting himself to share Kagami’s private space, or be charmed by his resilient spirit to stick to his side despite the very real threat of a vengeful _demon_ that has already developed a very strong dislike for him.

At the end, he decides to be exasperated. “Aho! You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?” He shrugs and leaves the luggage by the door, walking to the couch in the middle of the living room to flop onto, as if he already owns the place. “What are you gonna do with all this space anyway? I’ll pay half the rent or whatever if that’s your concern.”

“No, that’s not...” Kagami begins in a frustrated voice, but decides to calm down before continuing the discussion in order to appear more reasonable. Not that he isn’t reasonable already, but Aomine has a talent for riling him up by his mere presence that makes Kagami’s arguments sound like whining. “I own the place. But that’s beside the point. I don’t want a roommate.”

“Don’t be such a pighead about this, Kagami. You obviously need someone to talk to instead of that voice in your head, and I could use some time away from my overbearing parents.”

That catches Kagami’s attention, distracting him momentarily from the actual discussion. “You live with your parents?”

It’s odd imagining the 20-year-old, 190cm something man with that devil-may-care attitude to be still living with his parents. Kagami finds it...charming, in spite of himself.

“Yeah. Not all of us can afford a place of our own.”

“I’ve seen your car. You’re not exactly poor.”

Aomine gives him a smirk. “You’re pretty observant, aren’t you.”

Judging by the tone, it was meant to be sarcastic, but Kagami says anyway, “I spend most of my time scouting potential rapists to sleep with, of course I’m observant.”

At this, Aomine throws a cushion at Kagami’s head, and Kagami ducks reflexively, which leads to the cushion hitting the TV screen instead.

“Ugh! Don’t ever joke about this, Kagami! It’s fucking awful.”

It is, isn’t it? Kagami’s recently developed dark sense of humor apparently doesn’t sit well with everyone.

“Sorry.” He mumbles sheepishly, and Aomine just grunts in response.

Sensing the other’s lingering bad mood, Kagami fetches him a beer from the fridge as a peace token. Aomine grabs the beer with a ‘thanks’ mumbled under his breath and takes a huge gulp from the can. Kagami joins him on the couch.

“Were your parents okay with you suddenly moving out?” Kagami asks after a while of watching Aomine silently downing his beer.

At this point, he knows no matter what he says or does, the blue-haired man will not go away. Partly because Aomine is fucking adamant about what he wants, probably used to always getting his way, and partly because, somewhere between Aomine seeing him buttnaked on blood-stained sheets and Kagami riding in Aomine’s car and spending the whole night at his friend’s clinic sharing with him snippets of his life, Kagami’s attempts at warding off the other man have become halfhearted. He might as well accept the tornado brought into his life by the stubborn, obsessed Nittaidai ace and hope for the best.

“Yup. Told them I’m moving in with my new boyfriend. Seriously, I couldn’t have given them happier news. They were so proud I finally got my shit together and decided to settle down. So, uhh, I guess you have to meet them, too.”

Not bloody likely, Kagami almost blanches at the prospect of meeting Aomine’s parents and being introduced to them as their son’s _boyfriend._ He masks his apprehension with sarcasm. “I’d love to meet them, aho. They must be awesome parents.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, they brought up someone like you, didn’t they.”

Aomine’s eyes widen. It’s the first time Kagami notices their color. Almost the same shade of his hair. Huh. Just like Kagami. And Midorima too, now that he thinks of it. _And_ Kuroko. What’s happening here? The pattern is too consistent to be a coincidence. Kagami wonders if a similar situation had been involved in the birth of the three men he has come to know while in Japan.

Unaware of Kagami’s inner musing, Aomine’s heart is doing somersaults inside his chest.

“Damn, Kagami. Don’t just throw compliments around, I’m weak, I can’t take it.”

Kagami gives him a confused frown. “Huh? Who said that was a compliment? I meant anyone having to deal with someone like you for all these years must be amazing people. I’d toss you on the street if you were my son.”

Aomine pulls his thin brows into a disappointed frown at hearing Kagami’s sincere tone. “First, you rude bastard, I’m an amazing son, thankyouverymuch. Second, don’t ever say things like _if you were my son_. That’s disturbing on so many levels considering how much I wanna fuck you.”

Kagami’s expression suddenly turns dark and gloomy.

 _Oh shit, I said fuck. We can’t fuck. Shit._ “Ahh...oops? Didn’t mean to blurt it out like that.”

Kagami shrugs, like it’s nothing, but his face gives away his inner turmoil. “It’s not your fault I’m a fuckup.”

Aomine throws an arm around the shorter man’s neck, and uses his other hand to ruffle his messy but wonderfully soft hair, which still smells of shampoo, like fresh woods and citrus. “Hey, stop saying shit like that. Why would I be so fucking hung up on you if you were a fuckup?”

Kagami wrestles his head out of Aomine’s hold, and runs a hand through the rusty red mop in an attempt to tame the wild hair that is now sticking out in all directions. He glares at Aomine. “Why indeed?”

Aomine sighs, wishing he had inhaled more of the scent on Kagami’s hair when he had him in a headlock. “Look. I already told you I don’t mind that we’re not fucking. Being in a relationship means more than just fucking, you know? And I have already fucked too many people for this lifetime.”

And none of that ever mattered. But Kagami does. Sex with Kagami does. Doing _anything_ and _everything_ with Kagami matters.

Aomine feels choked-up while Kagami looks unconvinced.

“I want something more with you.” His voices shakes slightly, and he feels his face heat up like a school boy standing before his first crush. He’s so fucking glad Satsuki isn’t here to see him like this, or he would never hear the end of it.

Kagami tilts his head to the side, raising one thick, split eyebrow. “Don’t you mean _less_?”

Aomine groans. “I meant more genuine. More valuable. More than a dick and a hole. Come on.”

Kagami looks away and bites into his lower lip. “I had people coming on to me, saying they wanted to date me, and the moment I told them we couldn’t fuck, they bailed.”

“I’m not like them, because I know you’re not like anyone else. Plus, we can have other types of intimacy, right? Like, kissing. Can we kiss?”

Aomine has suddenly perked up at the idea. Why hasn't he thought about it sooner? Kagami has a pretty mouth, full, red, soft-looking and with a defined cupid’s bow. He wonders how he tastes like. The fantasy makes heat pool between his thighs.  

Kagami strokes his lips absentmindedly. “I’ve never done it after the curse, so I’m not sure if it would transfer through mouths or not. Let’s not risk it.”

And it's not like he can trust Akashi's words on the matter, now that the demon disapproves of Aomine's presence in his life, and would no doubt choose every opportunity to get rid of him. 

Aomine, meanwhile, is trying really hard not to look too morosely at Kagami’s pretty, now untouchable, mouth. “Okay, no kissing. What have you tried?”

Kagami flushes a little. “Well, um, touching…touching my -”

“Your dick.”

“Your dick?”

Akashi and Aomine say it at the same time, but with different inflections. Kagami’s eyes inadvertently turn to the direction Akashi’s voice came from. In the far end of the living room, sitting on the spacious window sill with his back against the wall, looking out the window like any normal college kid wistful about summertime. He had been silent until now, and Kagami had all but forgotten about his presence; something that he would have thought impossible before Aomine.

The bastard is smirking, eyes still on the scenery out of the building, like he finds the whole situation amusing.

Apparently, so does Aomine.

“For someone who gets himself into a lot of BDSM situations, you’re oddly prudish.” He says teasingly in order to distract himself from the harrowing thought that Kagami's sexual experiences have all been sexual _assaults_.

Kagami's response to the teasing is to grab the other remaining cushion on the couch to hit Aomine’s stupid face with it. The blue-haired man dodges in time, and the cushion ends up hitting him in the side of his neck instead.

“Shut up, aho! I’m not a prude.”

“Okay, whatever you say, babe.” The term of endearment slips out of his mouth so easily as if he has been calling Kagami that for a long time. The redhead is blushing heavily at the term, while Aomine’s brain is short-circuiting over what just happened.  

After a few tense seconds of silence, with Kagami averting his eyes and willing his blush to go away, and Aomine trying to come to terms with the fact that he's turned into a sap and he can't change back, the Nittaidai ace finally says, “so, handjobs are okay. What about blowjobs?” And he can’t stop himself from imagining the feel of Kagami’s hard erection sliding repeatedly over his tongue and the sudden spurt of his warm cum hitting the back of his throat. His own cock twitches in interest at the thought.

“I donno. Let's not get saliva involved.”

 _Fuck. Okay, this is hard,_ Aomine thinks miserably as he tries his best to appear unaffected by the realization that he can’t kiss Kagami or give him a blowjob. Maybe he shouldn't have brought this up. “Handjobs it is then. I can work with that.”

Kagami gives him a disapproving look. “You’re an idiot. Why would you want to limit yourself like that?!”

 _Because you’re fucking worth it_. “You know there's this term asexuality?” And Aomine himself only knows what it means because of Kise who’s in a relationship with this guy, Kasamatsu, who, according to the blond model who never shuts up about his boyfriend, is asexual. “Some people are asexual and they can still be in a relationship. I can just think of you as asexual.”

Kagami shakes his head. “But that’s not really the case about me, is it? It’s not that I can’t have sex. I can’t have sex with _you._ I still have to fuck some strangers to get some sleep. Wouldn’t that bother you?”

Aomine doesn’t like the conversation, but maybe it’s best if they get it all out of the way now rather than later. “Yeah, it bothers me so fucking much like nothing has ever done. But not because of jealousy or stupid shit like that. It bothers me, because you’re putting yourself in harm’s way and I can’t do shit to protect you.”

Kagami’s face turns a deeper shade of red, rivaling the color of his hair. “Why must you be like this?”

“What? Charming? Sexy? Irresistible?”

“Fucking embarrassing,” and then in a much softer tone, he mumbles shyly, “But all those things, too.”

Aomine can’t stop a wide, joyous grin from almost splitting his face in half. He reaches a hand to ruffle Kagami’s hair, which has quickly become his most favorite place to touch Kagami, but his hand is expertly swatted away.

Undeterred, Aomine puts his arm around Kagami’s broad shoulders, his second most favorite place, bringing their faces close to one another. “Okay, don’t even try to deny it this time. You totally just said something nice about me!”

Kagami turns around to face him, those impressive eyebrows pulled over his intense eyes as he gives him a dark glare. “I did no such thing. I called you embarrassing.”

“But all those things, too.” Aomine reminds him with a nudge to his shoulder.

“What things?” Kagami says in a confused tone, which, to be honest, Aomine has no idea if it is genuine or feigned.  

“Charming. Sexy. Irresistible.”

Kagami shrugs. “Your words. Not mine.”

 _Totally feigned, then_. The bastard was pulling his leg, and still keeping a straight face about it. Aomine was impressed. He didn’t know Kagami had it in him to be anything other than painfully genuine, naive and confused. Oh, and fucking stubborn and effortlessly sexy.

“Must you be like this?” Aomine asks in exasperation.  

Kagami is trying to suppress his smile, but his eyes give away how much he’s enjoying this. “Like what? Charming? Sexy? Irresistible?”

“Fucking difficult,” Aomine says in a gruff voice, before letting his voice drop into a silky cadence. “But all those things, too.”

Suddenly, Kagami’s warm and big hands are on either side of his face, cupping it in a gentle embrace.

 _“Ahomine.”_ He says it in a tone that doesn’t sound insulting or teasing, but fond and grateful, laced with disbelief and awe.

Aomine mimics the gesture, gently holding Kagami’s face in his hands, bringing their foreheads into contact.

“ _Bakagami.”_ He says it with all the love he feels for the man, breathless and blessed, a little smile playing on his lips.

This close, touching foreheads and bumping noses, Aomine can see the scattered darker flecks in Kagami’s bright carmine eyes, and smell something bittersweet on his warm breath, and imagine the rich taste of his lips in his mouth. He sighs in content and closes his eyes. He could stay like this forever. 

“Eskimo kiss.”

Aomine opens his eyes to find Kagami with a dopey smile on his stupidly pretty face. He returns the smile as he brushes the tips of their noses together, feeling at that moment the luckiest man on earth, holding onto the most precious of treasures. “I’ll add that to the list.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More fluffy aokaga, i guess. enjoy it while it lasts ;D


	11. Chapter 11

The court has always been his favorite place on earth. His safe haven from the banality and brutality of the world. It’s where he found himself many years ago, his aspirations and yearnings, and later learned how to lose himself in it. The court is a raised line separating him from the reaching hands of pain and the beady, lustful eyes of loneliness. The court is where he is now, at three in the morning, surrounded by the almost suffocating stillness in the air and the incessant sounds of cicadas, trying to escape sleep and stifle the raging pandemonium inside his head. Chasing that sweet scent of serenity that keeps eluding him tonight. Or this morning. It’s all the same to him now, when he doesn’t have the luxury of sleep to make that distinction for him. 

He feels restless, frustrated and on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Every single shot has hit the rim but missed the basket completely since he came to the local basketball court an hour ago after Aomine finally fell asleep (in spite of himself and after much bragging that he could go a few more days without sleep, _don’t you think you’re special, Bakagami!_ ) in the guest room, which is _his_ room now, funny that.

He’s seeing double; isn’t sure what is actually there and what’s just in his head. He’s fucked up and he feels it down to the marrow of his bones. He doesn’t know what to do. 

Another shot. Another miss. This time an actual air ball, much to his utter mortification. He hadn’t made such an awful shot since the one he made when he picked up a basketball for the first time almost a lifetime ago. 

He doesn’t go after the ball; instead, he resigns himself to watching it with despairing, blurry, bloodshot eyes as it rolls pointlessly on the concrete and finally comes to a stop. There is a pair of shiny leather shoes next to the ball now, attached to a pair of slender legs in black dress pants, and as Kagami drags his eyes upward, taking into the lithe frame clad in an expensive, stylish suit, Akashi reveals himself to him in all his holier-than-thou glory, with mismatched eyes of fuchsia and marigold mocking and amused, mouth curled into a cruel, self-satisfied smirk, the air of someone reveling in others’ misery, _that bastard_. 

Slowly, Akashi bends down and grabs the ball at his feet. Kagami starts, eyeing the other redhead with apprehension coiling like a snake in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t know the demon could touch the ball. 

“It’s because you have left your imprint on it.”

Akashi answers his thought coolly, in that aristocratic tone, running his long fingers languidly over the studded rubber as if caressing the soft skin of a lover. Kagami shudders, whether at the wayward thought or what the demon just revealed to him, he’s not sure. 

 _Shit_. Akashi can touch things that Kagami has touched a lot? Is that what he means by _imprinting_? Does that mean...does that mean he could touch Aomine too if they got too close? 

Akashi spins the basketball on one finger, a trick that he has probably picked up after watching Kagami do it many times, giving him a lopsided smile. “Why don’t you wait and see?” He says with that annoying, cryptic tone of his that could mean anything from a childish remark for riling him up to an actual promise of death, and throws the ball. It’s a swish shot, thrown straight at a 45-degree angle, a perfect arc, going through the basket smoothly, with professional accuracy, mocking Kagami.

Kagami curses loudly, frustrated with himself, furious at Akashi, despairing at the thought of the upcoming game, remembering that coach Aida promised to kick him out of the tournament should he collapse in the middle of it due to exhaustion. A prospect that looks more and more likely with every hour that he goes without sleep. 

Akashi doesn’t run after the ball. Instead, he extends his hand and the ball flies right into his open palm as if answering his call. For a brief moment, Kagami wonders if this was the kind of play he could have if he let Akashi take over. Not that he ever would, but being able to play basketball with that kind of power sounded kind of intoxicating to him. 

As always, Akashi latches onto his thoughts like a damn leech and makes a show of his next shot. A three pointer from the far end of the court, executed with such assurance and finesse that could put any NBA player to shame. Kagami really hates that bastard. 

“It’s been seven sleepless nights, Taiga, and you have a game in two days,” he recalls the ball and goes for another perfect three pointer that leaves Kagami’s mouth dry at how _impossible_ it is. “At this rate, even if you manage to catch some hours of sleep, your body won’t be able to handle it on the court. Let me take care of you.”

Kagami snaps out of his trance, finally back to seeing Akashi for what he is. A psychopathic demon hellbent on possessing his body for more power instead of a basketball prodigy with deadly accuracy and impossible three-pointers. 

“Take care of me?” Kagami snorts, shaking off the remnants of a deep yearning to have that power, no, to have a chance to play _against_ that power and win. “Is that what they’re calling demonic possession these days?”

Akashi appears by his side, invading his personal space like the fucking bastard he is, leaving the basketball to hover ominously a few inches off the ground. “I will take you to the game and we will win. Together we will win _everything_. I promise you that.”

“Together? Like I believe you. The moment I let you in, you’re going to push me out.” Because why wouldn’t he? What use would he have for Kagami once he got into a body to do as he pleased? Kagami would only be a hurdle, trying to stop him from achieving whatever nefarious plan he had. It would make more sense for Akashi to just get rid of him. 

“I won’t. If we agree on everything, there won’t be any need for me to do that.”

And why would Kagami agree with everything that bastard wanted to do? “What if you decided to hurt one of my friends, huh? I’m not letting you do that!”

Akashi raises a brow at Kagami’s outburst, like he finds his argument childish. “You’re willing to miss the chance to become a _god_ simply because of your _friends?”_

Kagami pulls his brows into a deep scowl. “You don’t even know what the concept of _friend_ even means, you don’t have the right to be derisive about it. Plus, I don’t care for power.”

Akashi tilts his head to the side, giving him a calculating look. “But you care about winning.”

“I’ll win on my own.” Kagami says with determination shining in his eyes even as exhaustion burns through his veins like acid.

“You can’t beat everyone.” It is said in a cold, matter-of-fact tone, so sure and final, leaving no room for argument. 

It lights up a fire in him. He may be on his last legs, ready to drop dead with the next blow, but he will never take shit from anyone, least of all from the cause of all his torments.

“Then I’ll just have to show you.” Kagami says with an impish grin and grabs the hovering ball in his hands. He takes a deep breath, the early morning air fresh and frosty, burning his lungs with its biting chill. He may have lost everything -- his sleep, his sanity, his hopes and dreams -- but as long as he’s alive, he’ll never let go of basketball. 

He shoots, and this time the ball goes into the basket with a perfect arc. He’s not going to let the team down. Not now.  

 

*******

 

He’s figured sleep deprivation is a lot like hunger. Not that he has gone hungry much, but there was that one time in middle school, when the basketball team had gone on a training camp for a week and Kagami had ended up hungry for the first two days because there was not enough food to fill his ‘bottomless pit’ of a stomach as his teammates used to call it, before the team manager went to town to remedy that oversight by buying half of the ingredients in the department store. But after those two days during which he had thought his stomach was trying to eat itself, he was strangely not that hungry anymore. It took him at least another two days to get his normal appetite back— two days of pure terror while thinking that there was something seriously wrong with him if he said no to a second pizza.

So sleep deprivation is like hunger, he thinks to himself. When it passes a certain point, you stop feeling its sting as sharply as before. As if you had trained your body to get used to the new condition like a survival tactic, because it was not going to change back to how it used to be, you might as well learn how to live with it. 

Standing before the bathroom mirror at 6 in the morning, seven days of no sleep, looking like a homeless junkie, Kagami feels like he doesn’t need sleep anymore, and he should just attend his classes and do all the things normal people do, even if he barely remembers how to act like a normal college student that doesn’t have a sadistic demon following him around all the time. 

Resolved -- or was that resigned? He can’t really tell anymore -- he smears a generous amount of concealer over the bruise-like bags under his eyes, and uses the eyeliner and lip gloss Alex had left behind when she visited him on Christmas, as a distraction tactic to make his face look slightly less like it belongs to a dead person. He will go to university today, he decides. He can’t afford any more skips, especially not with a game coming up. 

When he walks into the kitchen to fix breakfast (for two, _holy shit_ he still can’t believe he’s sharing his space with Aomine, of all people), the said bluehead raises his head from the table and just...stares.

“What?” Kagami asks with raised brows as he takes out eggs and soy sauce out of the fridge for a _tamago gohan_. He is actually used to having toast or pancakes for a quick breakfast, but with Aomine around, he isn’t sure if he likes American breakfast. He’ll ask later. 

“You look like Kise.” Aomine finally says, in a gruff voice still affected by sleep, eyes soft and slightly unfocused. He isn’t much of a morning person, is he? Not that Kagami is surprised. 

Kagami places a bowl of leftover steamed rice before Aomine and lets him decide how many eggs he wants in it.

“That a compliment?” Kagami has no idea who Kise is or how he looks like. He grabs his own sizable bowl of rice, cracks three eggs into it, adds soy sauce and sesame seeds, stirs the whole mixture with his chopsticks and tucks into the froth with gusto. He might be slightly more biased toward bacon and eggs as his taste buds have gotten more used to that flavor over the years, but _tamago gohan_ is still one of his most favorite Japanese dishes. It reminds him of a faraway memory, the taste is nostalgically sweet on his tongue. He wonders if his father used to make it for him when they were still in Japan.

“He’s a model,” Aomine says in lieu of an explanation, after he’s half way through the content of his bowl. He looks like he’s enjoying his breakfast, the way a half-starved man does while feasting on a lavish, five-course banquet, and Kagami smiles softly at his accomplishment. 

“So, smoking hot then.”

Aomine looks up from his bowl and gives Kagami a scrutinizing look, taking into his lined eyes and still shiny lips, despite the fact that he has just downed a bowl of rice and ran his tongue over his lips several times. Must be some pretty resistant lip gloss. Aomine wonders if he bought it himself because he can’t imagine Kagami ever bringing a girl to his place. And not just because of the curse or even the fact that he only sleeps with men because of the curse. There’s just something really naive and innocent about the redhead that doesn’t go well with the image of someone who would do one-night stands to relieve his sexual urges. And while Kagami _does_ one-night stands, it’s only because of the curse -- so yeah, maybe it _is_ because of the curse after all. 

Aomine grunts, more in response to his own thoughts than Kagami’s playful vanity. “Somewhere up there yeah, but you pull it off better.” Probably because of the color of his eyes. They are far more intense and passionate than Kise’s eyes, and the black of the eyeliner sits much better against blood red than it does against mellow-toned honey. 

“You were right, Aomine,” Kagami says as he takes his empty bowl to the rice cooker to get himself another fill. 

“Yeah?”

Kagami returns to the table after grabbing three more eggs from the fridge. He makes a quick mental note to go shopping after he’s done with his classes today. He has to make food for two people now. The thought, instead of being annoying as he expected it to be, is actually rather comforting. It’s a good distraction to be taking care of someone else instead of his own. He would’ve gotten a dog if it wasn't for his fear. Too bad he’s not a cat person, either. Aomine, Kagami decides, would do for now. 

“You’re the best flirt in Japan.” He says instead of telling Aomine that he makes a good comfort pet. He wouldn’t look as happy hearing that as he does now.

Aomine swallows a mouthful of rice before giving him a cheeky grin. “I said Tokyo, but yeah why not, I can take on the whole country with my incredible flirting skills. What finally made you see the light, though?”

“‘Cause you’re honest.”

Aomine drops the grin, his expression growing serious. “I don’t need lies with someone like you.” He says with conviction.

A warm feeling spreads over Kagami and he can’t help the grateful smile at the bluehead’s reassuring words. “Okay, that was actually a pretty good pickup line.”

Aomine thinks Kagami looks more physically there with that smile. 

“You keep underestimating my prowess, Bakagmai, I’m gonna make you eat your words.”

If he was a normal human being, he would have answered that with a flirty remark of his own, _‘I’d rather be eating something of yours instead if you don’t mind.’_ But as it stands, he’s a shitty excuse for a love interest and he only settles with a tight smile and, “yeah, yeah, keep impressing me Ao, and we’ll see if that’s gonna change my mind.”

“You’re gonna be okay at the uni today?” Aomine asks after the two are done with the dishes and moved into the living room, with the Nittaidai ace now changed out of his comfortable pajama pants and t-shirt into some kind of a school uniform that is slightly rumpled but the bluehead doesn’t seem to mind. 

Kagami makes sure he has grabbed all the books he needs for today. He may not have any idea what the contents are all about but he would like to keep up appearances, at least. “Sure. You need to attend your classes, too.”

“Don’t do it on my account.” Aomine almost growls and Kagami gives him a wry smile.

“Huh. Don't flatter yourself, _Ao_.”

Aomine suddenly reaches for Kagami’s cellphone on the low table and flips it open, and starts punching in numbers before Kagami could wring it out of his hand. “This is my number. Call me if you need anything.”

Kagami takes the phone back, looking at his new contact, _Ao,_ and a strange feeling settles in the pit of his stomach. “We’re going about this backward, aren't we?”

“What?”

“Normally, one starts with giving their phone number to their crush. But You jumped right into it by seeing me naked. That’s like, stage 20 or something, and now you’re back at stage one.”

Aomine gives a shrug. “Well, I wouldn't exactly call it backward. Back and forth, maybe.”

“Back and forth like basketball.” Kagami rocks on the balls of his feet while saying it, in an excited tone like he has just discovered the meaning of existence. 

Aomine reaches out to sink his fingers into those thick, dark red strands, giving Kagami a rough pat on the head. “That's more like tennis, you basketball-baka.”

Kagami leans back far enough for Aomine to lose his reach, and makes a half-assed attempt to put his wild hair into order. “Hey, I have a medal in tennis. I just used the basketball analogy so you’d understand.”

“Fuck off, Kagami!”

Aomine growls as the redhead ducks under his reaching hand and bursts into giggles. The Nittaidai ace is feeling slightly undignified because Kagami was telling the truth about the medal. He has seen the whole colorful collection, mostly golden, after all. If there is a basketball-baka in this room, it’s him not Kagami. Which makes Aomine wonder why the redhead chose basketball over all other sports he could have pursued. And the thought that he could have chosen something else, that Aomine would have missed the chance to meet Kagami as his destined basketball rival, makes a terrible sense of dread spread all over his mind. 

“Why did you choose basketball?” He asks after Kagami has finished with his silly giggles, now looking slightly flushed and bright-eyed.

“Huh?”

Aomine scoffs. “You’re a sports freak. If the medals are anything to go by, you’re really good at a lot of shit. Why did you decide to focus on basketball instead?”

“Why did you?”

For a second, Aomine is stunned that his question was spun back on him, but he shrugs, deciding it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like his venture into the basketball realm was exactly an exciting tale that he needed to prepare a grandiose speech for, or a dark secret that he needed to protect. “I guess I was at the right place at the right time. I got introduced to the sport at a very young age, and when I saw how good at it I was, I decided to stick with it. Now, back to my original question. Why did _you_ choose basketball?”

Kagami sits down on the couch, indicating that they are in for a long story. Aomine doesn’t mind it at all as he sits close to the redhead, taking in his minute expressions. He’ll be late for his first class but who gives a shit about classes when there’s Kagami around. 

“Because it’s a team sport,” Kagami starts in a soft tone, the look on his face fond and nostalgic. “Playing individual sports, being as good as I was, it was very isolating. I only had rivals. People who'd rather see me drown than share a drink with. Believe it or not, I’m not very good at making friends. All my life, I’ve only ever had one friend. Until I joined the basketball club in my last year of middle school. It was then I realized my talent wasn’t daunting to my teammates. In fact, the stronger I grew, the happier my team became. They wanted me to be stronger because we were a team and my win was theirs, too. I love that feeling. That people are happy with my success. That they’re not plotting my death in their heads when it’s me taking the first place. I guess I just...wanted to belong.”

Quite a speech, huh. Aomine wasn’t expecting the honest sentiments behind those words nor the somewhat easy eloquence with which Kagami strung those many sentences together. Kagami doesn’t exactly strike him as someone who’s good with words. Guess there’s a lot of things he doesn’t know about the redhead. 

“And here I was worried that out of the two of us, it was me who was turning sentimental.” 

He expects Kagami to throw a cushion at his head or come up with a sassy retort, but the redhead merely shrugs. “Well, I guess I _am_ sentimental. I care too deeply about stuff.”

It’s disarming, how fucking honest Kagami can be. 

“I’m glad you care.” Aomine throws in a bit of honesty of his own and Kagami gives him a soft smile for his effort. 

“I’m glad you do, too.”

And Kagami thinks that yeah, he has lost two chances of getting rid of his demon for a night because of Aomine _caring too much_ , and he still hasn’t found another candidate to pass on Akashi to, but this thing they have here, this connection, this easy conversation, the attentive look in those blue eyes that makes Kagami want to talk about his life in all of its boring and gory glory without feeling the anxiety that the other wants him to shut up, yeah it was worth it. Aomine is worth it.

Worth what, though? Kagami feels obligated to wonder. Is it really worth the disaster he knows is just around the corner to upend Aomine’s life, just so Kagami can get a moment of reprieve now? And if the answer is yes, is he really that selfish, and how come he has just realized that now? 

“Eskimo kiss?” Aomine asks cutely, sensing the other’s gloomy mood.  

Kagami gives a pause, and then smiles. _Fuck it._ For now, for once in such a longass time, things are looking up, and Kagami will ride the tide like the professional surfer he is, before finally submitting to his fate and drown. 

Kagami takes a deep breath, and enjoys the taste of being alive, even if it’s just for a moment, even if it’s just for now. “I thought you’d never ask.” And he grabs the back of Aomine’s head with one hand, bringing their faces close enough to brush their noses together. Somehow, the gentle press of their noses, with their faces being as close as they are, warm breaths mixing and eyes locked on nothing but each other, feels like the most intimate act he’s ever shared with anyone. And it feels right. Even if selfish, it still feels pure, and lovely and sincere. Kagami’s smile grows until his happiness bubbles into his throat and rises into a crescendo of unrestrained laughter. Aomine chases after the feeling with peals of laughter of his own.  

 

*******

 

“So, I’ve been thinking really hard about this today,” Aomine says as he starts stripping right at the front door all the way to his room (thankfully, not dropping the items of clothing along the way), his voice carrying clearly throughout the spacious, yet nearly empty, penthouse. 

Kagami, who got home earlier than Aomine since his university was much closer to his apartment, managed to do some shopping, take a shower and prepare some strong coffee before the blue-haired man arrived. 

“Hope you didn’t hurt your brain too much while doing it,” he says as he takes a sip from his coffee, enjoying the look of annoyance on the other’s face as he joins him in the kitchen without bothering with a shower. He doesn’t smell like sweats, so Kagami lets it slide. He probably spent the whole day sleeping. Not that Kagami can begrudge him that, the Nittaidai ace has sacrificed enough hours of sleep for his sake. 

“Shut up, asshole. I was trying to find a solution to your problem, you could be a little more appreciative, you know.”

He manages to pour himself a cup of coffee from the coffee machine without any incident, and Kagami thinks maybe he was wrong about the bluehead; he’s not totally hopeless when it comes to survival skills and hopefully, Kagami doesn’t need to babysit his ass all the time. 

“I’m really grateful, oh great Aomine-sama.” Kagami says with a flourish, and snorts when Aomine scoffs at him.

“Be all sarcastic you want, but I think I found a way. Wanna hear it or continue being a little shit?” 

Kagami sighs, putting his mug away. “Sure. Let’s hear it.”

Aomine makes a content noise as he sips his coffee and throws all of his 90 something kilograms of weight on the kitchen island instead of into a chair that was designed for that purpose. Kagami’s eyebrows twitch in irritation but he decides not to interrupt the man who, despite his annoying mannerism, is very clearly trying to help. 

“So I was thinking. You mostly pick up the assholes you sleep with at Ignite, right? And Tetsu basically has an FBI-level profile on all of his patrons. He can help you pick the best candidate, you know someone a little less psychopathic maybe? And you choose the place you’re gonna do it, say a motel room or something. When you two get there, I’ve already been hiding somewhere in the room. So before things get nasty I come out and club the asshole in the head. Then we get the hell outta there.”

Aomine wasn’t exaggerating. He had really given Kagami’s predicament a lot of thought. His _solution_ , crude it might be and spurred most probably by its  _successful_ execution at the cabin two days ago, but was there really a better alternative? They were dealing with _supernatural_ stuff here, and Kagami has already visited people who called themselves occultists or exorcists or demonologists (upon Kuroko’s suggestion), but none of them were able to help. He has long resigned himself to the fact that the only way to get rid of Akashi was to sleep around. Aomine’s suggestion may have some merit in that it is still built on the fact that nothing else would work for Kagami other than sex. 

“It’s...not bad. But it still needs to get nasty to justify the murder.” 

“The guys are already rotten and deserve to die, and you taking them out is a service to the community.” Aomine says in such a self-assured and self-righteous tone that for a moment Kagami thinks he can see the _cop_ in him. 

Kagami heaves a deep sigh, letting go of the distracting, idle thoughts. He had had this very argument with himself many times before he realized he wasn’t really cut out for that line of reasoning. 

“I’m not an executioner, Ao.” 

Aomine grins widely at that and Kagami braces himself for a stupid comment. “No, you’re not. You’re the angel of death.” _And here it comes._

Kagami resists the urge to give in to another sigh of frustration. “That’s not right. Who am I to judge who deserves to die? I can only do it as some fucked-up self defense, not as a fucking divine retribution.” 

Aomine hops off the kitchen island and grabs Kagami’s shoulders tightly, almost as if about to shake him. Kagami barely manages to stop himself from lashing out in blind panic. _Fuck_ , he breathes in deeply. This is Aomine. The basketball genius with an ego the size of the whole of Japan, and an obstinate attitude worse than his. He’s not one of those assholes who grab him with hands that bruise and toss him against the wall or onto the floor to knock the wind out of him. Aomine is a _friend_. He’s here to help. 

Unaware of Kagami’s inner turmoil Aomine continues, “Kagami, it doesn't matter, anyway. They’re gonna die after this no matter how you label yourself. You just have to change the way you look at things.” 

“The way I look at things is the only kind of control I have left over my fucking life.” Kagami’s voice rises a few notches in volume in his barely controlled panic, but Aomine doesn’t look startled at the sudden outburst. 

He looks kind of soft and kind of understanding somehow. 

“I’m part of your life now and you have complete control over me.” There’s a thinly veiled suggestive tone in his low, husky voice that makes Kagami’s heart skip a beat. 

“Trust me. I don’t know shit about how to keep you on the leash.” He says almost dismissively, not willing to give the scary depth of Aomine’s feelings for him any serious consideration, even as he feels a fluttering sensation in his chest as if those words had been bullets that tore into him and now a violent current of air is passing through the holes.   

“I teach you.” Aomine says with such an ease that makes Kagami momentary lose focus on their actual topic of discussion.  

“You’re crazy. What are we even talking about?” 

Aomine’s fingers are still around his shoulders, Kagami notices belatedly, the touch firm and steady but too soft to leave any marks, and the warmth of it seeps through and it’s funny how Kagami wants to lean into it like some spoiled house cat even if he has never felt like one. 

“About the fact that I'm madly, stupidly, irrevocably in love with you and I do everything you want me to do if it makes you happy.” 

 _Love_. How can he say that cursed word with such ease and serenity like he has never been in love and out of it before? Like he has no idea about the sharp, pointy edges that cut through, the hidden thorns that nip at the skin so masterfully that by the time you notice and look at yourself, there’s almost no skin left and you’re nothing more than a bloody mess. As if love has never betrayed him before. Like he’s sure that Kagami wouldn’t. 

“Aomine.” Kagami can’t help the breathless quality of his voice when he calls the other’s name in awe and bewilderment. 

How can he be so sure that Kagami wouldn’t betray the love he’s offering him so fucking _selflessly_ like Kagami is god and he is the fucking messiah? Because Kagami isn’t sure that he wouldn’t.

At that moment, Aomine, with his softened eyes and precious love, looks so much like how Kagami did before everything went to hell that he isn’t sure if he’s about to burst into laughter at the absurdity of it all or throw up.

“Tell me what you want and I’ll make sure you have it.”

Aomine looks so fucking sincere right now, _beautiful_ even, with his admiral blue eyes, dark skin tone and thin lips, washed in the orange and amber hues of the setting sunlight incandescing the otherwise cold, black-&-white themed kitchen, and Kagami feels like his whole face is on fire. “Stop being so embarrassing, for fuck’s sake.”

Aomine gives a solemn nod. “Okay, I try.” 

“No, I meant...that’s not what I want, idiot. I just…” _I don’t fucking know what I want._

Kagami stops himself from blurting out, ‘ _you tell me what I want!_ ’ by viciously biting into his lip. 

“You just what, Kagami? Tell me. What is it that you want right now?” 

 _Right now_? Well, that should be simple enough, shouldn’t it? ‘Right now’ could be just a few seconds to a few minutes long. What can last only that long? 

“Can I...can we kiss?” He says lamely, ashamed of himself that his version of a kiss isn’t what Aomine wants, but he can’t think of anything else at that moment that would be safe to try and still make him happy. 

Aomine grins widely at his lame request, “I thought you’d never ask.” and doesn’t hesitate to lean in close and give Kagami an Eskimo kiss, like there’s nothing better to do in the entire world than to rub noses with another man.

Kagami gives a sigh of contentment, resting his forehead against Aomine’s. It’s been ages since he felt this safe in someone’s close proximity.  

“If you wanna leave, do it right now.” He feels compelled to say. Losing what they have now would be less catastrophic than if Aomine decides to leave him after Kagami has become stupidly attached. 

“You’re the only thing I think about. I’d like to have a visual representation to go with it, too, if you don’t mind.” 

“What if it turns out a nightmare?” Kagami whispers, with their faces still close to one another, warm breaths mingling, eyes seeing nothing but each other.

“Then I'll try to shake both of us awake.”

“You don’t know how to do that.”

“Have some faith in me, Kagami, it’s all I’m asking.” 

Kagami steps back, fighting the urge to cry. What has he done to deserve Aomine? He’s a total fuckup. 

“You’re the only one besides Kuroko I let into my home. The only one I let this close. The only one I share Eskimo kisses with. I have plenty of faith in you, Aomine.”

His eyes sting, and his heart feels like a ball of lead rolling heavily in the pit of his stomach. Aomine deserves better, but the blue-haired man must be truly an idiot for choosing this farcical relationship over others. 

“Then I won't let you down.” 

 _No, you won't. But I will_. 

Kagami isn't sure if he's relieved or disappointed that Aomine can’t read minds. 

In his peripheral, Akashi gives him a pointy smirk, silently approving of his last dark thought. Kagami hides his face into the crook of Aomine’s neck, breathing him in, and pretends for a moment that he’s not cursed, that he’s okay, that it’s okay to hold Aomine in his arms and let himself fall again. That he's not _imprinting_ on Aomine like some kind of animal and endangering his life. Aomine’s arms tighten around his waist, cushioning his fall, reassuring Kagami that when he finally hits the ground, it won’t hurt at all. This is how it should be, Kagami thinks, falling in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aomine loves kagami so much that it's impossible for kagami not to feel affected :')


End file.
